


Seven Moons

by ladyflowdi



Series: Seven Moons Series [1]
Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Alpha Sherlock, Alpha/Beta/Omega Dynamics, Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Historical, Alternate Universe - Magic, Arranged Marriage, Attempted Kidnapping, Babies, Betrayal, Blood, Breastfeeding, Brief mention of possible miscarriage, Canon-Typical Violence, Childbirth, Children, Explicit Sexual Content, Families of Choice, Family, Forced Heat, Forced Marriage, Graphic Labor and Delivery, Kidnapping, Knotting, Lactation, Loss of Virginity, M/M, Male Lactation, Mating Cycles/In Heat, Mpreg, Non Consensual, Non-Consensual Drug Use, Omega John, Pregnant Sex, Self Confidence Issues, Self-Acceptance, Slavery, Soul Bond, Violence, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-09
Updated: 2014-03-01
Packaged: 2017-12-04 17:33:46
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 13
Words: 66,267
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/713274
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ladyflowdi/pseuds/ladyflowdi
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>“This is happiness?” John asks, utterly heartsick, holding up his wrists and rattling the chains. “You’ve sold me for six gold mines and protection along the northern border.”</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to my two betas, the glorious dkwilliams and the fantabulous thalialunacy, for all of their help.

This is, John decides, one of the dumbest things he’s ever done.

“This is the dumbest thing you’ve ever done,” Myron tells him, buckling John’s vambrace tightly. “Easily in the top ten.”

“Oh yeah?” John laughs and tries to lace his tunic one-handed. A serving maid rushes round them, carrying away empty pitchers and cups. “You said that the last time, old friend.”

“The last time you were driving your horse through the market square after those art thieves,” Bohin chimes in, slapping John’s knife into his hand. Outside the crowd cheers, restless and ready.

“Got them though, didn’t I?” John grins, unrepentant.

“After causing thousands of denhars in damages and nearly killing an old woman!”

“Semantics.” John waves the hand Myron was trying to buckle. “I was given an award.”

“And your father made you clean the entire lower market and took your household expenditures away for an entire month.” Myron frowns, takes him by the shoulders. “John, please be serious. This is the rest of your life. Are you sure about what you’re doing?”

“Of course,” John says, squeezing Myron’s forearms in return. “Of course I am. We’ve talked about this.”

“No, _you_ talked about this, and mostly _at_ us,” Bohin says tightly. “It isn’t too late.”

“It was too late a long time ago,” John replies. “You know that as well as I.”

Both men, his closest and most trusted friends, share a look of anguish. John claps them tightly on the shoulders. “My mind is made up. Better it be I than Heriathin. When she is queen, there will be no danger of my father’s politics. She can marry who she likes.”

Myron swallows convulsively. “You haven’t thought this through. We could… kidnap her, take her far away from here.”

“And what, hope to outrun the Wood Lord’s magic?” John shakes his head lightly. “She’s shown her worth. You’ve watched her fail, time and again, and watched her get back up, time and again. She will do us all proud.”

“My lord,” Bohin says, eyes shiny. Both men bow to him in reverence, and John allows precisely three seconds of that nonsense before flicking them both on the forehead. “Alright, that’s enough. Let’s go lose miserably,” he says cheerfully, swinging up his sword and sweeping out of the tent.

 

.

The loss is, in fact, _spectacular_.

John gives it a good show, for this, the final test in a centuries-old tradition. A mighty elk had been released into the black wood the very first day the challenges began, nearly a year before, and today it would be up to the two of them to catch it. Whoever did took the throne of the Horse Lords.

In the end it is his sister’s arrow from his quiver that takes down the beast. He watches her from a safe distance as she drops to her knees before the elk, weeping, and thinks of what a fine sight it will be to watch her emerge from the wood with it over her mare, triumphant.

He gives her a five minute head start, and when he comes out of the woods, holding his shoulder dramatically, it is to the glory of Heriathin, Queen of the Horse Lords.

His father does him the honor of not yelling until they’re alone.

“What were you thinking?” he bellows, the sound echoing across the grand hall. John’s mother is on her throne, weeping, but Father is far too furious to console her.

“You weren’t going to do anything about it,” John snaps, furious, “so I did.”

“Not do – have you taken leave of your senses?” John’s never actually seen someone’s face get that red before – it can’t possibly be healthy. “I’ll have to talk to the counsel tomorrow. We’ll call a special session; get this, this _catastrophe_ sorted.”

“You can try, but it won’t do any good,” John replies, furious. “It’s written clearly in our laws, Father. The child who takes the elk takes the throne.”

“You have no idea what you’ve done,” his father snarls, pointing a finger at him. “No idea at all. You are a foolish idiot of a boy, and you have no concept of the consequences not only to yourself, but to this entire kingdom.”

“You were going to sell her!” John bellows. “You were going to auction her off to that animal Lord James, the man who buried the two wives who couldn’t give him sons, as if she were _property_.”

“She _is_ property!” his father roars. “She is mine to do with as I see fit, just as you are, just as this entire realm is! I am your king, boy,” and for the first time in a long time, John feels a shiver of dread, “and you have made a grave mistake in taking the choices of the throne into your own hands.”

His mother shouts his father’s name, but he silences her, cutting a hand through the air. When he looks at John, it is as if they are strangers. “This is what you wished, Jounhin. On your head be it.”

Father turns and stalks away, and his mother follows, looking back at John as if she’s never seen him before. Or perhaps as if she’ll never see him again.

 

. 

The changes are immediate and damn Bohin and Myron for the truth of it.

His father doesn’t request a special council, for which John is relieved – rather instead, the priests of the Ten Realms come together as they do when the Children of the Realm are of a marriageable age. They arrive expecting to marry alpha sons to the omega princess of the Horse Lords. That it is an omega prince instead seems to matter not at all, and John can only stand ten minutes of them bidding on him as if he is a prized stallion. He leaves before a decision can be made.

There is a shift, minute but clear, in everyone he knows. He hadn’t expected it, this feeling of becoming _less_ , but it is there, and it is real. He is forbidden from his usual sword training, from horseback riding, from leaving the castle. There is a touch of embarrassment in everyone he speaks to, and a well of dread begins to open up in his stomach.

“I tried to tell you,” Myron says, sprawled out on the grass. “You wouldn’t listen, but that’s about on par with you, royal idiot.”

“Hey,” John says, without feeling. His pup huffs softly near his elbow, drooling into the crook of it, and overhead birds sing their joy at a new day. He sighs, rubs his face. “I’ve lost their respect.”

“Not quite,” Bohin tells him. “It’s just… you’re not really a bloke anymore, are you?”

“What?” John asks, panicked, as Myron punches Bohin in the shoulder. He squeaks with pain, but John waves a hand quickly, silences whatever argument they are about to have. “What did you say?”

“You know you’re our prince, always will be,” Bohin says, trying to appease him. “It’s just that, now you’re not to be king, you’re to be… well.”

“This will pass,” John says, hands to his face. “A few weeks and it will all blow over. My father won’t stay mad at me forever, and he’ll stop inviting all of our cousins to bully me into apologizing. It’s just this bit that’s infuriating.”

“Yeah,” Myron says, and doesn’t sound at all like he believes it. 

 

.

Three nights later, John is summoned to his father’s rooms. 

He doesn’t think this is a social call, and he’s right – his father is at his desk, as he tends to do when he wants to appear royal, unfeeling. He often succeeds. John stops before him in the resting position he had taught his knights, in repayment for the slight. “You wished to see me, Sire?”

His father sets his quill down, regards him silently for a few moments. “I’ve succeeded in attaining an offer for your hand in marriage.”

John’s heart kicks up, startling him with the jolt of panic. “What?”

“Your hand in marriage,” his father repeats, studying his face carefully as he says it. “To the son of the Lord of the Seven Moons.”

John stays standing only through sheer willpower. There is a roaring in his ears, a pinch in his chest. He can’t breathe well. “What?”

His father sighs then, a gusty sound. “Jounhin,” he says, weary. “You can’t have expected your little stunt to have gone off unnoticed. Two of the realms have only beta children to offer, and as you well know, the Realm of the Forest Valley wished for a female omega to fulfill a long-ago held promise to their king passed on. Our cousins to the south refused you outright, claiming you would attempt to rule through their daughter. This is the only offer I could reasonably accept.”

“Accept! You didn’t have to accept any,” John says, voice rising. “You don’t have to accept any at all!”

“Of course I do. I have an omega child of marriageable age, and the only way to expand my kingdom, solidify its roots, is to marry that child to a realm I see fit.” His father stands. “You have put yourself on this road, John. The Lord of the Seven Moons has a son, of proper age and dignity, in need of a mate. The Lord requested brood rights, and I accepted. You are to be bound in chastity in the morning, and we leave for the northern territories two days hence.”

The bottom of John’s world falls out from under him.

He barely waits until dark before he steals out of the palace under the cloak of the waning moon. He rides hard all night, and nearly makes it to the southern border before his father’s men catch up to him. He’s brought back fighting like a wild thing, and no amount of his mother’s platitudes, his father’s shouting, will make him stop. His father’s priests come and bind him in chastity, metal and leather against his most private place, uncomfortable bordering on pain. It is just inside him, the chastity piece, closing him where nothing and no one had ever breached him, and the panic becomes fear, makes him fight with such fierceness that it takes six of his own men to hold him down, shouting his name. They chain him, a set of dainty, light cuffs that are nevertheless as hard as iron, and bind him to the post of his bed. That it’s called a Virgin’s Hold is insult atop injury.

“This was the fate coming to you,” his father tells him as John fights violently, struggling against the cuffs and his own terror, “when you sacrificed your place to your sister.”

 

.

The morning of their journey to the realm of the Seven Moons, his father’s physicians come and force a potion on him that leaves him loose and pliant. He swims in a fog, barely aware of the priestesses who dress him in fine silks, darkening his eyes and reddening his lips. They paint symbols all over his body with ink that will only fade by an alpha’s touch – no matter how much John rubs at it, it won’t come off.

His sister cries on his shoulder, as they are to be separated for the first time in their lives. He holds her and thinks this disgrace is worth it, unable to imagine her enduring this without some part of her fracturing and splintering away forever. She is safe, here, from the Wood Lord’s eye. 

“Come now,” his father says, that afternoon in the caravan. He drinks from the golden wedding cup, full of spiced wine he’s brought by the case as part of John’s dowry. That and the two hundred thoroughbreds that follow them, are the very embodiment of his sister’s – and now his – worth. “Jounhin, it is not so bad as all that.”

John does not answer.

His father sighs, long suffering, and takes another sip. “Your sister has proven herself, by your very hand, worthy to inherit the throne. Now you must fulfill this role as generations of lords and ladies before you have. Your mother came to me in just such a marriage, and we’ve been happy all these long years. I only wish for that same happiness for you.”

“This is happiness?” John asks, utterly heartsick, holding up his wrists and rattling the chains. “You’ve sold me for six gold mines and protection along the northern border.”

His father’s face hardens. “This marriage will ensure the survival of our people. We need the protection of our northern allies, and nothing could be so binding as a marriage between our two Realms. One day you will understand the sacrifices we must all make.” He pauses, thoughtful. “You need not be frightened. He’s a good boy with a keen mind, and the match will, in time, foster good will between you.”

“I’m sure it will,” John spits, furious, “once I fulfill my duties as broodmare.”

His father is quiet for a long while. When he speaks again his voice sounds different, as if he’s speaking to a skittish horse, a frightened child. John has never heard his father speak in such a tone, and never to him. “Don’t fight him, Jounhin. When he comes to you tonight, open to him with your entire heart and there will be no pain.”

A well of terror comes up and renders John mute. They say nothing more for the rest of the journey.

The Realm of the Seven Moons, when they pass through the Valley of the Arching Hands, is as beautiful as John remembers from a trip he once with his father. He remembers the palace rearing up out of the cliffs, the sparkling blue pools beneath it reflecting like a perfect, unbroken mirror. Now, in the gleam of the midday sun, it shines like a sparkling white beacon out of the dark mountain wood.

The village below is magnificent, and decorated for a celebration. John wonders what’s happening until it dawns on him with sickening suddenness – him, they’re celebrating his arrival, the wedding of their young prince. The caravan is met by soldiers on white horses, and John only gets a glimpse of the dark red flowers that grow in his homeland woven into their manes before the priests come.

The very last thing he sees before he is blindfolded is his father’s expressionless face.

He listens very carefully – there are voices in a tongue very similar to John’s, and the sound of horse hooves on cobblestone, and the cry of thousands of peasants cheering. John has never been so glad for the thick cloth of a blindfold, for the richly decorated curtains of his caravan car. They travel further up a steep hill, and then winding, winding, winding. It seems to go on forever, and John has only just begun to give in to the sick panic squirming in his guts when the caravan comes to a stop.

Trumpets call, the curtains are drawn back with a gust of fresh air, and John’s heart does it’s very best to beat out of his chest.

There are hands at each side, on each elbow and knee helping him unfold, climb down, stand. The ground is freezing beneath his feet, some sort of smooth, polished stone. Voices, hushed voices all around him, are whispering, and John thinks his knees are going to give out on him any moment.

The priests lead him forward and he can do nothing but follow, trusting their guidance. His chains are very loud against the stone under his feet. There are more voices, voices all around him in the dark behind his blindfold, hundreds of people witnessing this disgrace. John’s now certain his heart isn’t going to come out of his chest; it’s going to crawl right out of his mouth.

He should have tried harder to run away. He should have tried again, he should have found some way to break the Virgins Hold. His muscles tense and the priests squeeze his elbows; warning or comfort he doesn’t know.

It’s too late now. It’s far, far too late.

None of it seems real. John’s father is speaking, saying something – John hears nothing but a roaring in his ears, the people singing. The priests are there, unchaining him to be presented properly, and the Lord of the Seven Moons makes a speech, his voice deep and cultured like John remembers. There is chanting, and the crowd rises and falls once, twice, in accordance to tradition, and somewhere along the way John gets married to someone he’s never even seen before, who he knows only be the cold touch of his hand where it’s joined with his.

When the blindfold is removed the light dazzles him, makes his eyes water so badly that they overflow – the ritual weeping. Paint runs down his face in black streaks, as he has seen so many times at so many marriages in Temple.

John looks on his mate for the first time, dark hair and pale skin, and watches him close his eyes in pain. 

 

.

The ceremony ends quickly, and rather than the celebration as is customary in John’s homeland, he and his new mate are separated at once and led in opposite directions – the man with his father, John with a woman who can only be the Priestess of the Moon. He is taken in a carriage from the temple to the palace across an enormous bridge, with a sheer drop so far down John can’t see the bottom. The walkway on either side is lined with peasants and townsfolk waving and cheering as he passes.

The palace itself seems to leap out from the cliffs, and gives John the impression of a white dove about to take flight. The turrets soar up into the sky, lined at the top with the red flags of the Horse Lords, a gesture of welcome. The guardsmen at the top must have seen the wedding procession coming for miles. The stone the palace is made with is at once achingly beautiful and completely unnatural, and John is reminded of the magic at work in this realm, very likely done by the Lord of the Seven Moons himself.

He is led by the Priestess of the Moon into the palace, where the hallways are filled with those hoping to catch a glimpse of their new prince. John stares straight ahead without blinking. The Priestess keeps hold of his arm, leading him gently. “Do not be frightened,” she says, and John wonders just how awful he looks. Two servants open an enormous set of double doors to a suite that’s filled with at least two dozen people.

It swiftly becomes obvious that the trials he must endure are long from being over. He’s ritually cleansed by the priestesses, who wash away the face paint and perfume of his homeland and replace it with something warm, almost spicy, that leaves his lips tingling. They dress him in silk so fine that nothing is left to the imagination, and satin slippers for his boot-roughened feet. The physicians are after, affirming that the chastity piece has done its job and he is a virgin, and are seemingly uncaring of the embarrassment of their new prince, of his discomfort that they should have their hands all over him. They prick his finger, smearing the well of blood onto a parchment, and mutter to one another for an eternity. The priestesses hum and chant, and there John is, standing nearly naked in front of what must be thirty people, done up like a harlot. 

He can’t help himself; he bursts out laughing.

The sound alarms everyone in the room. The priestesses leave at once, their attendants behind them, and the physicians press a vial of something on him. He tries to refuse but they insist, vocally at first and then with more force. It tastes like apples, and burns going down.

And then, quite suddenly, John is alone, left kneeling like a gift in the center of the massive bed with only the lightest of gossamer robes to cover his modesty.

He breathes. Once, twice, a long, slow pull of air into starving lungs. His heart is racing. 

Before he can decide what he’s going to do (images of creating a rope out of the bed sheets, sneaking out of the bathing room window, and running across that massive bridge go through this head), he realizes he can smell _everything_ \-- the men who’d just left the room and his own fear and the soap they’ve washed the sheets with. Horror narrows the world down to a thin point, lodged deep inside his belly. He presses a fist there, clenches his eyes shut as an ugly, familiar burn builds inside. 

The door again opens and John’s matewalks in.

It’s as old and primal as time itself, the recognition of an alpha’s immediate interest in a fertile omega. It would be funny if it wasn’t so awful, the way he freezes, nostrils flaring and face flushing into a brilliant, mortified red, when he sees John. John can’t exactly blame him, since he’s followed by the Lord of the Seven Moons and John’s father.

As a boy, when he’d first begun his knight’s training, he’d had an old billy goat of a task master, Sir Fletcher. He’d been mean right from the beginning, never giving him any slack, and though it took him a long time to realize it John had learned to be grateful he was treated the same as all the other knights in training. Sir Fletcher had trained them to be hard, and strong, and fearless, had taught them how to fight, but perhaps more importantly he had taught them how to yield without loss of self – to a mate, to an elder, to an enemy. He’d hated the practice at the time, swallowing his pride over and over again until Sir Fletcher had been satisfied, but he had come to rely on those skills more than once.

Never had they been most needed, most valued, as in that moment, nearly nude before two men he didn’t know, and his father, who wanted to see him brought to his knees.

He is there. He is on his knees, but his very soul is pulled in close, sheltered and protected under the shield of his own indifference. They are the enemy, and they will not have him.

The Lord of the Seven Moons does a single pass around the room, inspecting that everything has been done to his specifications. When the Lord reaches the bed he gives John a nearly unreadable look, though if John were the sort he’d have thought there was something almost kind in the man’s eyes. “Prince Jounhin,” he says, voice so deep it nearly rattles into John’s chest. John goes wet, a hot, mortifying _gush_ that makes him want to sob. He’s a knight, cowed by no man, but here, now, as vulnerable as he has ever been in his entire life, he can’t stop himself from ducking his head low, baring his neck in deference to this alpha, this man who could hurt him should he so choose. “I hope that I will not be disappointed.”

“No, Sire,” he mumbles, numb. “I will try to please you.”

The Lord of the Seven Moons nods, thoughtful, and turns away to his son. “The lords and ladies in waiting will be in the hall, if you require anything. The priests will come to ascertain consummation. Do not allow him to bathe until then.”

The son’s eyes are alight with such anger that they glow almost red. He works his jaw tightly, the muscle bunching. “Yes, Father.”

The Lord then turns to John’s father, dips his head. Father nods in return and comes to him, to where John has not moved, cowering like a terrified dog, and takes his hand, kisses his forehead. The touch is cold, and burns like ice on John’s skin. “Remember what I told you,” he says, low. “I will remain in residence for the next day if you need anything, anything at all.”

“Yes, Father,” John says, staring at his knees.

There is a pause as if his father wishes to say more, but finally, with one last squeeze of his hand he lets go, and John is left alone with the man he belongs to for the first time.

There’s silence for so long that John twitches under the weight of it, turning his gaze to his mate. He’s grown from the gangly boy John once met into a handsome man, tall like his father with fine, noble features. His hair is no longer too short and windblown; his riot of dark curls fall over his brow, caught in a thong at the nape of his neck. He has grown into his nose, large and regal on his face, and his hands, long-fingered and slender, but his eyes are the same, so light they’re almost gray, the color of dew on a cold morning. They do not want to meet John’s. “I’m sorry,” he begins, with a voice as deep as his father’s. “I tried to – This entire situation is utterly barbaric, but there was no talking my father out of it once he got it in his head.”

John swallows, hard. He wants to arch his back, touch his throat. He wants, with a steady growing pressure he will soon be unable to ignore. “I knew you only as the younger son, last I visited your kingdom.”

The man closes his eyes again, pained. He hasn’t moved from his position by the door, but John can see the heat of him, the hardening length in his trousers. John’s body contracts and a pulse of slick slips from his hole. It’s all he can do not to squirm. “Sherlock. My name is Sherlock.”

“Jounhin,” he replies, and swallows again. “But I hate that, reminds me of a stuffy old uncle, so you can call me John.”

“John, then.” Sherlock glances up at him under the fringe of his hair. Even in the shadow of the room, where the light from the fire doesn’t reach, his eyes seem to glow, unearthly, like an animal’s. John wonders if he has magic too. “The particulars of what is to occur here tonight have been explained to me,” he says, voice thick with disgust, “as I’m sure they have been to you.”

John turns his gaze away. “No.”

“What do you m—Of course not,” Sherlock snaps, furious. “The entire situation is ridiculous, and when I am king my sons will not endure the—”

He stops, as if catching himself, as if realizing – realizing –

Unsteady on his feet, he sits, hard, on the desk in the corner of the room. “What have you been told, John?”

“To shut up and do as I’m told.” The words come out sharper than he intends. “I’m sure my father told you I tried to run.”

“Yes,” Sherlock replies, carefully neutral. “He may have said something to that effect. There are guards on watch for you.”

“No doubt.” He looks up at the man. “I don’t know these lands. It’s cold, and my home – that is, the Realm of the Horse Lords, is much warmer than it is here.”

He stands immediately. “Are you cold now?”

“I can honestly say that I’m not,” John replies, and watches Sherlock’s cheeks get dark. The smell of him, of his beginning rut, is musky on the nose. “Though, if you don’t mind, I’d rather not sit here like some sort of concubine.”

There’s an enormous wardrobe against one wall of the room. Sherlock rummages in it for barely a minute before emerging with a nightshirt made of some sort of thin cloth. When he nears, offering it, John can smell him, his clothing, his hair, the blood pumping down between his legs. Sherlock turns his face away, offering the illusion of privacy as John shucks the gauze-laden mess and pulls the nightshirt over his head. 

It’s cool on his skin, and smells of rich, potent alpha. John makes a noise in his throat, and Sherlock turns away to unbutton his jacket, his shirt. The panic that John had been keeping at bay explodes again and he fights to keep his breathing normal, knowing it must sound very loud. John grinds his teeth against the whimpering caught in his throat, so wet now he’s filling the air with his scent. Sherlock twitches, and John flushes under the burn of his own humiliation. “Did they give you the key?”

“Key?” Sherlock asks, and John can’t say the words, he physically can’t say them, so he shows him instead, metal around his cock and between his legs. Sherlock’s eyes clench closed when he sees John’s shame, then open again and meet his. “Yes.”

He goes to his clothing to fetch it and John watches, silent, heart pounding fiercely now, and with it a thick, glorious stirring at the strong flex of Sherlock’s shoulders, the muscles in his back as he bends down. John lies back, laughing, covering his eyes with his arm. “Your physicians drugged me.”

Sherlock’s hand fists around a leather thong with a key. “I know. They drugged me too.”

“Is that part of the ritual?”

“Yes.” Sherlock rounds the bed and sits next to him – John pulls up the nightshirt dutifully so Sherlock can get at the lock near his thigh. He’s very careful not to touch John’s skin. “You’ll be surprised to know that arranged marriages can sometimes get off to a rocky start.”

“You don’t say,” John says with a snort, peeking out from under his arm. The sound draws Sherlock’s eye, makes his lips quirk up once more. John has no idea what kind of master he is, what would happen if he invited his anger – and he has a temper, proof positive by his reaction to his father. John knows it won’t be long before he finds out, but he doesn’t want to, not here, not when he still has to get through—

This close, John can see the flecks of silver in his eyes, the pale skin that speaks of a summer spent indoors. The firelight dances and John watches Sherlock work the little key into the tinier lock, struggling to get it open, to get the chastity piece off. “Sherlock,” he says, a rush of need through his body that centers down in his loins, where the man curses bitterly, fighting with the lock. John presses the back of his head into the pillow, staring up at the ceiling.

He’s shuddering when Sherlock finally gets the lock open, when cool air hits damp skin. His head swims, and Sherlock says, “ _Fucking_ priests,” and John scrambles backwards to press his burning back against the cold wood of the headboard. The nightshirt is large enough that he can pull his knees up and the cloth down, not that it does anything to mask the scent, heavy and sweet, of an omega in heat. 

Sherlock looks down at the chastity device with disgust, stands to put it atop the dresser beside the bed. John wonders if he’s _that_ sort of man, if he’ll keep it, if it will become a tool of punishment. “You should have let your sister come to this.”

John wishes he could say it was like a douse of cold water. Instead, he fights with all his might not to press his fingers to the wet-tight- _want_ , the place between his legs that aches with a need to be full. “What?”

“Your sister,” Sherlock says. His voice, if possible, has gone deeper. “I’m not a kind man, John. The ideal situation would have been for all of us to continue along with our lives without interference, but if this was to be, a woman would have found this life easier to bear. You weren’t raised to be the submissive partner, the broodmare to the prince of a foreign court. How did you see this playing out?”

John feels his face get hot under the flush of his heat. “Fuck you. How do you know about Heriathin?”

“You’re a knight,” Sherlock continues, while he finishes unbuttoning his shirt. “Calluses on your thumbs from the grip of your sword, calves muscular with repeated exercises. You favor your right side, the effects of an old war wound – the Battle for the Lower Valley, two years ago now. You have a weak spot along your left flank that you have fought to master, because though your left is your predominant hand you use the right for your weaponry. You didn’t answer my question.”

It makes John’s head swim, badly. “What? How can you—what?”

He tries to ignore the skin being bared, pale and long and flawless, muscles moving underneath, until he can’t ignore it anymore, until Sherlock comes to the side of the bed wearing only a simple robe, naked and vulgar and big. The base of his manhood is thickening, the knot beginning to form. When he pushes into John he’ll engorge, tie them together, and – “You would have ruled comfortably as king, with whichever alpha you wished at your side. Your pregnancies would have been at your choosing, and with high honor on your children for being the babes of a king’s womb. You would have enjoyed the power of the throne, John, and used it well, yet here you are and there your sister is, thrust into a position she was not raised to understand. You’re a tactician, reasonably intelligent with the foresight afforded to you by campaign, and yet you chose this path with the full understanding of what was to come. Why? Why are you protecting her?”

It’s a knife, directly to John’s heart. He turns his face away, swallows hard. “Does it matter?”

“Not anymore. Though it makes me question what sort of counsel you took before deciding on this fate.” Sherlock sits again at his side. “I’m not a kind man, but I’m not a monster,” he says. “A woman would have found comfort in new friends, sewing, homemaking and children. Your sister would have come to find peace here.”

John digs his fingers into his calves. He’s starting to tremble, and he rubs his forehead against his knees, sweat burning in his eyes. “I couldn’t let her get hurt.”

“Your father had plans for her,” Sherlock says, and brushes his fingers through John’s hair. It’s like a fire bolt through John’s body, and he arches his back, keens sweet and high like the omega he has fought his entire life not to be. Sherlock’s thumb brushes his cheek and John _mewls_ , hates himself for every moment of it even if he can’t help himself. “My father saw something in you, enough to join our kingdoms together in marriage. I want to make very clear that this was not my decision anymore than it was yours, and outside of these necessary, and likely drugged, encounters, I do not expect you to warm my bed anymore than you should expect me to warm yours.” 

Sherlock’s fingers knot at the nape of John’s hair, pulling back just enough to get John’s throat to arch, bare, waiting. He keens, and Sherlock’s face is a study of shaken need, feverish in its intensity. “I won’t hurt you. Do you understand?”

Saliva pools in John’s mouth, a heavy lurch down low in his stomach. He’s losing control, and with an alpha nearing his rut so close it’s like a fire has been lit in his body. “I hurt now.”

Sherlock’s head tips, studying him. His fingers ease in John’s hair, but that makes the want worse. “Tell me what you’ve done with other men.”

“Kissed,” John says, staring at him. “Nothing more. My heats were well-timed, and I had--” He flushes with mortification and shame, because he’s hard, he’s so hard he’s twitching under the nightshirt, where Sherlock can see. “I took care of them.”

“Good. That’s good.” Sherlock presses his thumb gently to the curve of it, near his ear. “Don’t be afraid.”

“What’s to be afraid of?” He bites his lip until he tastes iron, until he can control the shudder in his jaw. 

For a moment, just a moment, Sherlock clenches his eyes shut, bows his head. When he lifts his chin once more, his eyes are clear and his mouth set in a thin, tense line. “May I touch you?”

“Yes,” John says, and hates himself for the tremble in his voice. He presses further back against the headboard, humiliated when Sherlock brushes his palm down under the nightshift and between his cheeks, traces a finger gently around his hole, already swollen open. Mid-heat, when he reached the crest, would see him so wet it would drip down his legs, pool in the hollow of his knees as he presented, shameless, for a knot. He fights to keep his thighs from clamping closed again. “You don’t need -- I’ve been wet for ten minutes.”

“I see,” Sherlock says, so calm, so fucking _calm_ while John feels like he’s coming apart at the seams. He wants to be angry but all he can feel is relief, that of the two of them at least one can keep his head. 

Sherlock’s fingers leave, only to come back. They’re cold, uncomfortable on his skin, wrong. “If something hurts, you have to tell me,” Sherlock says, shifting himself closer, more intimate. “I won’t make it awful for you. I’ll try to bring you pleasure.”

John lets out a shaking breath, waits for the first push. “Do it,” he says, and presses a hand over his eyes. “I can’t stand it.”

Sherlock listens. One fingertip only and it feels so good, like an itch being scratched that he can’t quite reach. It presses in and then out, slowly; Sherlock is careful, patient, and finally it’s slid all the way in. It isn’t painful but for the barest twinges, but he must soon yield to something far larger than a single finger.

He keeps his hand over his eyes, breathes in and out as Sherlock touches him. Sherlock isn’t ugly, for all that, even a bit handsome in a strange sort of way. Nothing like the people of John’s realm, who were for the most part fair of hair and eye, and short-statured. The people here seem to tower, and even here in this bed Sherlock looms over him, enormous by John’s standards.

He is protected. He is safe. He thanks Sir Fletcher a thousand times for drilling this into his head, for teaching him to yield to humiliation, to pain, without losing himself. He is whole, deep inside where nothing could ever hope to penetrate.

“You’ve gone quiet,” Sherlock says, startling John out of his thoughts. He opens his eyes, feels them wet and gritty. He scrubs his wrist across them. “Am I hurting you?”

“No,” John says, with a small laugh. “No more than I’m hurting you.”

Sherlock’s pupils are blown, eyes dark with an answering arousal to the scent pouring from John’s body. Any other alpha would have already taken what was his due, fucked John open the moment he scented him, fertile and ready to be bred. He doesn’t understand this, what Sherlock is waiting for, what he’s even doing, but when Sherlock murmurs, “Lie back,” John shakes his head, clenches his eyes shut and fights with himself until his greedy hole pulses again, then once more. He’s moving before he can stop himself, letting Sherlock pull him until he’s flat on the bed, knees up and legs splayed, wanton, a creature for sex. 

“Please,” John says, spreading his knees further. There is no longer any need for modesty, and the very thought of it makes his ears fill with the rush of his own disgrace. “I want—I—please.”

Sherlock settles in close between his legs and presses in two fingers, fingertips first, and then deep, deeper. It’s a bigger stretch, and John’s discomfort increases, edging now into the tension of pain, but so good.

It seems to take a long time for Sherlock to work both of his fingers inside, and John doesn’t understand, he doesn’t _understand_. “Please,” he begs, fingers clenched in the blankets, in his own hair. “Please, I need—”

“Tell me,” Sherlock murmurs, like he isn’t kneeling between John’s thighs, his cock huge and hard and dark with the pulse of his blood. 

“Why are you doing this?” John asks on what is very nearly a sob. He turns his face away, rubs his hips down into the blankets, into Sherlock’s fingers inside of him. 

“You’re a virgin,” Sherlock says, like it’s the most obvious thing in the world, like he isn’t an alpha about to fall head-long into a rut, like he doesn’t have an omega on a fucking platter before him. “And my consort. _Mine_ ,” he snaps, and oh, there it is, there is the alpha, the flashing dark eyes and deep-throated growl, the voice that makes John pulse, and tighten, and come. 

Lights go off behind John’s eyes and he bites into the wail coming out of him, strangles it even as his body shudders through aftershocks. His cock is still hard, so hard, but inside the pleasure burns so sweet, orgasm slipping into something else, ratcheting up the ache until he’s mindless, grinding down into Sherlock’s fingers.

Sherlock meets his begging eyes, face pulled taut, and presses so gently on the glands around John’s entrance. They flood, and slick drips from him, a low, heady rush between his legs connected directly to his cock. He swallows convulsively, but Sherlock presses his two fingers in once more, out and then in, and on his fourth try he touches his omega’s knot deep within. Sherlock pauses, rubbing gently, and John feels himself _gush_ , a wet slide thicker than his slick, that makes Sherlock utter a low noise of surprise. John laughs, shaky and weak, even as his back arches all on its own, even as he tries to present. “You – it’s my—”

“Yes,” Sherlock murmurs, and curls his fingers gently against the sensitive vaginal opening. John nearly levitates, and oh, saints above, it’s only the first few hours of heat but already he can feel himself losing control, already the pain is beginning to build inside, the need for something _in._

Sherlock is so gentle, careful to touch that same spot over and over on every return push, and John almost doesn’t notice when he comes back with three fingers, not until he pushes them to the second knuckle and John burns. He shudders, jolting, and Sherlock nods, pulling them free and shifting up between John’s legs.

It is a position John never imagined he’d find himself in, looking up at a huge man between his thighs, a man ready to pierce him to the quick. He panics, gulping for air, and Sherlock hushes him with a care that he is at once grateful for and furious about.

It’s too late. Sherlock lifts John’s knees so his feet are flat on the mattress. With one large hand he tilts John’s hips and then he is there, leading himself in. “Relax,” he says, when John tries to tighten. It’s no use, Sherlock has prepared him too well. He’s never done this but his body knows what to do, housing a wellspring of sharp, awful need that pinches in his chest, tugs at his heart. He wants to scream, to fight, but it’s too late, it’s all far too late for any of that.

Sherlock presses in, so deep, and then deeper still, as if it will never end. He rocks and moves and after a small eternity he’s finally in, hips nestled against the curve of John’s arse, stretching him beyond what he’s ever known. He can feel the knot, just there at the base, which will grow and swell and stretch him wide open, plug him deep for Sherlock’s seed. In a few hours it will be all he wants. He’ll beg for it, shameless. “It’s done,” Sherlock says, near to breathless. “We’ll wait as long as you need.”

“I-- I’m a warrior in my land,” John says, trembling, staring at the ceiling as his body fights the intrusion, as his body welcomes it with open arms. He grips hard at Sherlock’s shoulders, at the rippling muscle kept so carefully in check.

“I know.” He turns his head and kisses John’s knee, a small brush of his lips, and John realizes it’s their first kiss. “Does it hurt?”

“Yes,” John says, concentrating on his breathing and trying to ignore the well of tears he can feel burning in his throat. “A different pain.” His body fights again and he shudders, clenching his eyes closed. “It’s too much.”

“I know,” Sherlock says, his eyes glowing in the dark. It isn’t a trick of the light at all, but magic, fierce and beautiful and chaotic in all its wonder. John had suspected as much, and can’t untangle his feelings about a sorcerer bedding him from the actual bedding itself, or how much it aches. “You’re relaxing even now. In a moment I’ll move, and little by little it won’t hurt so much.”

“I need you to move now,” John says, ashamed his voice is almost a sob.

“Not yet,” Sherlock tells him. “Your body knows what it wants, but it’s new to this.” He reaches down then, palm flat over John’s chest, and apparently satisfied with what he feels, slowly stretches down over John’s body, propped up on his elbows so he won’t crush the air out of him. It’s different, immediate, and Sherlock feels huge above him, around him, inside of him. It’s better this way but also somehow worse, and John shudders, smothered and grounded and scared out of his wits.

Sherlock shifts above him, and John moans, squeezing his eyes shut when Sherlock pulls back and then pushes back in. It’s a slow, rocking movement, driving John’s hips up with the force of it, sending his knees skidding along Sherlock’s sides. The feeling is different and uncomfortable and slowly spilling over into something else. Sherlock moves with careful thrusts, and John’s attention is brought to the way his skin feels as it brushes across John’s thighs on his every movement, the way his shoulders look as he holds himself up over John’s body. He’s careful, he’s been so careful, and the more John relaxes the easier it is.

The pleasure is there, potent, and as Sherlock works him he slowly begins to fall into the throes of his heat. “Yes,” Sherlock murmurs, moving with more force now, more intent. His hips move and John’s do too, lifting to meet him if only to have that feeling again. He cries out when Sherlock’s pounds into him again, and then again, and John’s legs tighten and his thighs clench and he wants more of it, but this, like this, it isn’t right. He keens, lost, and Sherlock must know, he must understand his plea, because he pulls free for only a moment, long enough for John to slide into position, by instinct, on elbows and knees. He tilts his arse up high, presents himself for his alpha, terrified by his own role, by how easy it has come. He’s wet, dripping, and he doesn’t care that he is revealing far too much of himself. He is protected where it counts the most and Sherlock is bringing him pleasure he didn’t know he could experience, that he didn’t know existed.

Sherlock presses in once more, and the angle is perfect. John bites a scream into his fist when Sherlock slips that much deeper, into the place that made him omega, deep where their child will form. He hears himself _begging_ , and when Sherlock touches John’s cock, hard and wet, John jolts, a sound like a sob spilling out of him. “No, please, I—”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, squeezing John’s cock, milking it firmly in his hand. He lifts up, rears back over John’s body to work his cock in short, quick bursts. “Take your pleasure, John.”

He does, he does, clenching his own fingers in his hair, his mouth, as he jerks and spills all over his belly, the hem of the night shirt, Sherlock’s fingers. The contractions of pleasure prolong his coming until he wants to scream, to curl up in himself, to make it stop and make it go on forever, until he’s left shaking and spent.

Sherlock drops down, takes what’s his. His thrusts are fast, sharp, almost brutal, working hard towards his own bliss with determination. It hurts, the pain lending a sharp edge to John’s pleasure, and he moans, broken and high, when Sherlock’s knot begins to press in. It hurts, a lancing pain, and he struggles now as countless before him have, speared to the quick on a knot. Sherlock growls, mean and beautiful and deep, and sets his teeth into John’s neck until the smell of them is compounded by the iron-bright tang of blood. He screams and Sherlock is in, stretching him so wide he feels as if his body will split in two, and jerks and shudders huge over John as he fills him with his seed.

He collapses with slow, cautious increments, careful even now not to crush John underneath him, and rolls them to their sides. They breathe, panting together, boneless and exhausted. Sherlock is wracked with shivers every few moments, hips moving slowly, relentlessly, as orgasm takes him again and again, filling John full. John closes his eyes, whimpering like a kicked dog, and Sherlock’s palm cups his face, turning it towards him. “Alright?”

John doesn’t know what will happen if he speaks. He settles for shaking his head, because no, he will never be alright again. After searching his face for a long moment Sherlock pulls him closer and lays his head back down to the back of John’s shoulder, tired and spent.

He pulls the blankets up over them, drawing John’s night shirt down warmly over his side before he does so. It is the last thing John remembers as he allows himself to finally fall into an exhausted sleep.

The heat is on him for three days. It grows so bad that when he crests all he can do is mewl, knees spread and arse arched up high, for a cock. Sherlock is no better, caught in the throes of a rut so strong he can scarcely leave John’s body, let alone the bed. The priests come, and Sherlock growls like he’ll tear their throats out if they try to get close. Four men hold him down while the priests lift the blankets and inspect John, who shakes so hard and from a place so deep that they don’t dare touch him.

When they’re gone, Sherlock licks the cold sweat from his face and burrows ever-deeper, until the rhythmic movement of fucking, of the knot, is as close to home as John thinks he’ll ever get again.


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The one thing John hadn’t expected, and honestly could never have anticipated, is the sheer, unrelenting boredom he experiences the first three months of his new life in the Realm of the Seven Moons.

The one thing John hadn’t expected, and honestly could never have anticipated, is the sheer, unrelenting boredom he experiences the first three months of his new life in the Realm of the Seven Moons.

He wasn’t bred to be this. As first born he had been set to inherit the kingdom, and his sister had been raised to child rearing, had been taught the delicate art of homemaking. The learning curve, John discovers, is a steep one. He learns that if ever there was a person _less_ suited to it, it’s him. He doesn’t care about flower arrangements like he ought to, or sewing, or preparing food, and he _really_ doesn’t care about birthing and the thousand rituals that go along with it. The tutors despair of him utterly.

After the first, false heat with his – with Sherlock, John doesn’t see him all that much. He’d done his duty, stayed at John’s side until the heat was over, and then he’d just sort of vanished. Oh, John sees him every evening, no choice in the matter when they’re expected to dine together with Sherlock’s father and creepy, far too observant brother, but he’s no closer to knowing this person he’s expected to spend the rest of his life with than he was when they were bonded. He’s only come to John’s room twice in those three months, and only because Mycroft had made it a point to mention to the Lord of the Seven Moons that John was in the first days of his heat cycle, and Sherlock hadn’t so much as offered to help him nest. The Lord had looked first at John, who’d nearly spontaneously combusted with embarrassment, then at Sherlock, who’d tried, unsuccessfully, to crawl into his soup.

Sherlock had come when the first true heat lit John up with fever, bringing with him John’s favorite foods and warm, thick blankets. Though Sherlock was frustrated and angry he was always gentle, always thoughtful to John’s needs, aside from those last few moments when he sought his own pleasure. John didn’t fight him – after all, Sherlock had even less choice than John in this situation, and the least John could do was try to make it not-awful in return, especially when the man took such care not to hurt him. The truth is that the sacred duty _isn’t_ so awful, not after the first time, and John can handle his own loss of control, find pleasure in it, with increasing ease. The last time, Sherlock’s need had even instigated it, the man thrusting hard and fast until John had tumbled face first over the edge of his own pleasure.

John knows Sherlock is hoping he’ll conceive soon, and in a way, John is too. The pressure is beginning to mount, and his time with Sherlock is being increasingly monitored. The physicians flutter around him like a flock of agitated may birds, the priestess prays over him every morning, and he’s taught ridiculous exercises to ‘encourage’ conception, as if he has any control over it whatsoever. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if he’s unable to get with child. He doesn’t want to think about what will happen if he _does_. The truth is, if John were to remain childless forever he’s certain he wouldn’t mind a bit. He’d been born with a sword in hand and this, this forced stillness, this expectance of domesticity, is dragging across his nerves like an instrument out of tune.

There are hours and hours to fill every day, and there are only so many calisthenics he can do before he starts to lose his mind. Sherlock never discusses what he does or where he goes every day, very obviously does not consider John anything other than a necessary part of the world they were born into, so John decides if he isn’t going to be entertained by his mate, he’s just going to have to make his own fun.

The palace is as enormous as he had first thought, a long sprawl into the mountainside, up into the soaring spires above. It’s also beautiful, a labyrinth of rooms to explore and discover. He’s always known how to keep out of sight, and one morning during his solitary adventures he finds himself at the training grounds, watching the young men at their sword practice, and utterly green with jealousy.

When the head knight notices him he falls to his knee and drops his head with reverence, as do all of his knights in training. It’s completely mortifying. “No, no, get up, I’m sorry.”

“Not at all, Prince Jounhin,” the man replies, voice a deep, familiar rumble. Some member of Sherlock’s family, then. “How may we be of service?”

“No, nothing, I—” He stops. “What type of sword are you using?”

“Swords?” The head knight straightens, snaps his fingers, and one of the students offers his blade quickly. “Composite metal, Elvin ore and iron.”

“Hmm.” John takes it from the man, and he’s outwardly aware of the way everyone freezes with surprise, but he’s far too consumed with the sword in his hand, the comforting weight of it, the ease with which it moves in his hand. “I’m something of a swordsman myself,” John says, smiling. He swings, sword crashing instantly against the head knight’s, with an almost beautiful shower of Elvin magic. “What’s your name?”

“Lestrade,” he says, amused.

“Sir Lestrade, then,” John says, and pulls his cloak from his shoulders. “I haven’t swung a sword in some time. Would you practice with me?”

“Sire,” he says, tone wavering. “I don’t think—”

“It’s always been my wish to see the skills of the Moon Knights,” John replies, scraping his sword up the length of Sir Lestrade’s until they disengage from one another with a hum.

“I don’t wish to – to harm you sire, even inadvertently,” Sir Lestrade replies.

“Are you implying the Horse Lords are lesser knights?” John asks, eyebrow arched. He pushes his sleeves up, the cold nipping his bared skin. 

Sir Lestrade smiles, a tick in the corner of his mouth. Definitely related to Sherlock’s family. “I would never imply any such thing,” the man replies, and waves his students away, who quickly move to the sidelines, amused. “Sire, I really must insist.”

John swings, hard and quick, and the man jerks back, quickly bringing both hands to the hilt of his own blade as he’s driven backwards. John grins, all teeth. “You don’t strike me as a coward, good sir.”

The fight reminds John, for the first time in months, that he’s _alive_. Sir Lestrade is good, almost as good as John, and it’s like his mornings with Bohin and Myron, unafraid to swing, to move, to _fight_. The students yell and cheer, and John can’t stop laughing. His blood roars through his veins, his heart pounds and his mind is blessedly, wonderfully quiet for the first time in ages.

He almost misses it when Sir Lestrade freezes, almost takes off the man's hand, but he can’t miss the way the knight drops to his knees, the way the students follow.

He turns, and the Lord of the Seven Moons stands shadowed in the light of the noonday sun.

“You disappoint me,” he says, only, his voice somehow carrying to the furthest corner of the training yard. “You will bathe, and dress yourself to your station, and you will come to the Hall.”

He doesn’t wait for John’s reply.

 

.

John goes back to his suite, changes and cleans himself as best he can without having to call for a bath, because he’s got the feeling that the Lord of the Seven Moons wouldn’t appreciate being kept waiting.

John’s expecting a slap on the wrist, a lecture. What he isn’t expecting is for Sherlock, his face a cloud of frustration and anger, to be waiting for him with his father in the Hall.

John’s a warrior, he doesn’t falter, but he’s suddenly uncomfortably aware of his place in this household, of the depths to which he has fallen. He comes to a stop far enough from both men to be respectful, and bows shortly.

The Lord of the Seven Moons meets his eyes, searches in that uncomfortable way he has that makes it feel as if he’s flayed John to the soul. God help him, but John looks to the ground, ashamed.

Finally, after what feels like a small eternity, the Lord says, “Your mate was found on the training grounds, sparring with your uncle.”

John stares very hard at his boots, and Sherlock asks, stunned, “What?”

“Is this the respect I’m to be shown by my son and heir?” the Lord of the Seven Moons continues, a note of anger in his cold voice. “The gratitude for a prize such as the son of the Horse Lords? I find him inviting injury to all the generations to come after me, and _you_ in your laboratory, ignorant to it.”

Sherlock looks at John as if he’s never seen him before. John cringes under the weight of it. “Is this true?”

He closes his eyes, opens them again. “I’m sorry.”

“You're sorry you were caught,” Sherlock says, in a way John’s never heard from him. He sounds hard, like his father, unyielding. “I left you in the hands of your tutors, but clearly that was my mistake. I will take care of this, Father,” he tells the Lord, offering his own short bow.

He pulls John from the room, hand far too tight on his arm, and as soon as the doors close John wrenches away from him. Sherlock only catches the other arm, drags him away from the Hall so fast John has to trot like an animal to keep pace with his mate's much longer legs. “Let go of me,” he snarls, and the hand on his arm tightens in reply.

He’s led not to his own suite but down a different hallway to another, in a part of the wing John hasn’t been to before. The suite is enormous, matches the rest of the décor of the palace– long lines, cold and without character, in shades of white and black and the darkest midnight blue. Despite that it’s messy, lived in, comfortable in a way his own suite is not. Sherlock slams the door closed and whirls on him. “What were you thinking?”

“Thinking?” John snaps, rubbing his sore arm. “I was thinking that I’m so bored I could scream, that’s what I was thinking!”

“Bored?” Sherlock demands. “How is that possible, Jounhin? I have ensured that you have plenty to fill your day with.”

His birth name hurts falling from Sherlock’s lips, and John is furious at it, the hurt and the name and Sherlock, for being such an _utter_ git. “Those tutors are idiots. Surely you’ve taken leave of your senses if you honestly think I—”

“You are a prince of this Realm and the mother of my children,” Sherlock thunders, walls shaking and ground trembling under John’s feet, his voice so loud John nearly claps his hands over his ears. The sound travels into his chest, shakes around his heart like a gong gone off next to him. Sherlock’s eyes are blue, alight, inhuman. “You have no choice. You will learn as is expected of you.”

For the first time in their acquaintance, John is scared of him – scared like he can only remember being once, on the battlefield, when he became very aware of how small and insignificant he was. Something of it must show on his face because Sherlock freezes, the dark-white-black of his magic fading from his skin, leaving it pale and pristine once more. “John,” he says, more normal, more the man John has known these short months. “I understand that this is not a role you have been raised to, that there will be… a learning curve. Undoubtedly it has been difficult on you, as it has for the kingdom as they wait for news on… for news.” Sherlock clears his throat and his eyes become green once more, the glassy, dreamy color of new spring leaves. “These skills are necessary for you to learn. When there is new life, you will be grateful for this knowledge.”

John doesn’t answer, and Sherlock studies him. “I’ll make a deal with you.”

“Deal?” John tightens his arms across his chest.

“Yes.” A small, wry smile curls his mouth. “I dislike getting into trouble with my father, and you are finding the transition difficult. So, if you promise to work with the tutors for a few hours each day, I will promise to do my best to ensure that you are no longer quite so bored.”

“How?”

“I’m not sure yet,” Sherlock admits. “But I swear I’ll try. Is this acceptable to you?”

John nods, then tenses when Sherlock takes a step towards him. Sherlock freezes, something working in his jaw, but then steps ever closer, until he is standing before John once more. Carefully, he touches John’s arm, brushes lightly over the hurt he caused moments earlier.

John turns his face away, the burden of this new life sitting on him heavily. He wonders how he can retain his sense of self, how he is going to keep himself from flying away in little pieces if all that makes him _him_ is taken away. Sir Fletcher never taught him what to do, in a situation like this.

Sherlock rubs John's arm once more before his hand falls away. “I will come to you tonight,” he says, firmly, and John clenches his eyes closed. “It’s been brought to my attention that we, ah, need the practice. And tomorrow, when you are finished with the tutors, I will fetch you and we will have an adventure. Alright?”

For the first time it dawns on John that he has no choice, that his agreement doesn't actually matter. Still, he says, “Alright," if only to give himself the illusion of it.

That night Sherlock takes extra care, presses a kiss of apology on the line of bruises his fingers made on John's skin. He eases in with only a twinge of pain, so gently, so gently, as if through his actions alone he can erase all that had transpired in the day. It seems to take a long time for him to reach his precipice, moving with a slow sway. John doesn't come, doesn't even really get hard, and Sherlock doesn't press him.

Afterward, he lies awake in the dark, listening to Sherlock dress and leave with a click of the door.

 

.

John had been hoping that, with the new morning, he would have a new perspective on things. He is sorely disappointed.

The tutors come, as they do every single morning whether or not John wants them to, two old women who are, he’s aware, completely exasperated with him. They’re hard taskmasters, and seem thrown off by John’s attempt to listen, to even ask a few questions. John can’t say he blames either of them, considering he’d spent the last weeks doing his best to ignore them.

Still, barely an hour in and he’s bored stupid, his muscles aching for a good workout, his skin begging for sunlight. He can do little about any of it, though he makes them move to the terrace, where at least he can get some bloody air. It’s freezing, the first dip into fall already feeling like deep midwinter in John’s Realm, but the air feels good stinging in his lungs.

The tutors know their business well, and they work together to come up with a common theme. Last week it had been the various facets of keeping house, physically and economically, skills John had already learned ages ago -- he’d kept a household himself back home. This week, however, they’ve shifted to the very beginnings of child rearing, opening with the study of a body like John’s. He recognizes the books they’re using, and wonders what two women who have absolutely no idea about any of it could possibly teach him.

At one point Lady Hudson opens a book, and with a wave of her fingers it flutters up into the air, floating to a pedestal. The book expands, getting larger and larger until John can see the diagrams in horrifying detail. He feels like he’s going to throw up.

The tutors are off, droning on and on at each other, at the books, at John, about things he doesn’t want to hear, parts of himself he doesn’t want to acknowledge. He listens to them with only half an ear, staring off into the beautiful woods along the cliff. The trees themselves seem to be hanging midair, reaching out into the wilderness of open space. The incline is so steep that there’s no way he could walk through those woods, but the trees don't seem to mind, openly thriving. He wonders if there are others, places where he can reconvene with nature and get away from the cold, dead stone of the palace. He wants soil under his feet, wants to breathe in the sweet air of the forest, listen to the sounds of birds and insects.

The wind carries the sound of swords clanging, magic singing, from the training grounds below.

“I wouldn’t, if I were you,” says a voice from behind him.

John turns, surprised, because – because Sherlock is standing in the doorway, just as he’d promised. He’s never been so happy to see anyone in his entire life. “You came.”

“Of course I came, I told you I would,” he says. “Ladies, has the prince done as has been asked of him?”

“He… stayed throughout the morning, yes,” Lady Turner says, and Sherlock is far too intelligent not to hear the other half of that sentence. It serves as a reminder that John has no friends in this place.

Sherlock offers his hand to John, who takes it only to climb out of his seat before digging his fists into his pockets. “Thank you ladies,” Sherlock says. “You’re dismissed for the day.”

They’ve been in employment too long to be taken aback at this turn of events. It’s only when the ladies have left that John says, “You told me not to, so I didn’t.”

“What’s that?” 

“I kept my word. You asked me not to leave, so I didn’t.”

“Yes,” Sherlock says, slowly, confused. “I’m aware of the fact. I, too, kept my end of the bargain.”

“You’re early." John gathers his papers, the note-taking book he'd been given, nearly empty. “I didn’t expect you until after the midday meal.”

“Bored,” Sherlock replies, as they walk across John’s suite to the doorway. The room feels overpoweringly warm, after the cold terrace. “Should I have waited?”

“No,” John says quickly. “No. I was just surprised.”

Sherlock makes no reply, and John doesn’t press him. 

The preparation for the midday meal has servants rushing to and fro, laden with baskets, linens, food. John doesn’t think he’ll ever get used to how different everyone looks, how tall everyone is. Back home he was considered of average height and build, but here, surrounded by these mountain giants, he feels like he’s been shrunk. His coloring is so wildly different, from his light hair to his tanned skin, and he feels a bit of the country cousin against the majesty and regal poise of everyone around him. They expected a beautiful, exotic princess, and all they got was him.

“What did the ladies teach you?” Sherlock asks curiously.

The question sounds too much like what his father used to ask every evening, expecting a full report – and if John didn’t have something to say, his father would take him over his knee and whip him soundly, and the next day he would learn the lessons all over again. “Is that part of our deal?”

It’s the wrong thing to say. Sherlock tenses up. “I wish for you to educate yourself on these matters for no one’s sake but yours, so when the time comes you will know what to do. But if you wish it, I will make it a part of our deal.”

“And what will I get in return?”

Sherlock frowns at him. “You sound like a child.”

“Good,” John snaps, “you’re treating me like one.”

Sherlock is brought up short, literally – he stops in the middle of the hallway, servants flowing around him like water. He stares at John, surprise written across his features. “I didn’t – it was not my intention to do so.”

“Then you should think about your words before you say them,” John replies curtly. He doesn’t wait to see what that does to Sherlock’s expression, turning back around. After a moment, Sherlock’s longer stride catches up to him. “Regardless of what you think, Sherlock, I’m doing my best.”

“You aren’t,” Sherlock replies, but when John glares up at him it’s to find him serious. “You have to try harder. My father is a good and just king, but he will have no compunction in taking any children we have away to be raised by a fit mother. I don’t wish that for us, or for you.”

John had already figured this out, but hearing the words makes something in him cringe. He stares down at his shoes, too thin for the cold stone. “I’m doing my best,” he says again, hating the reminder of his duty, of what is expected of him. It grates on his every nerve, against his own sense of self. That strange feeling of crumbling comes back, only worse. He knots his fingers in the pockets of his jacket.

Their destination is, thankfully, down a quieter hall. John has some idea of where they are – he hadn’t been paying close attention, but he’s aware that they’re in one of the spires. The magic had sizzled across his skin when they’d passed through the archway. 

There is a port window outside of the door, and as he pauses, waiting for Sherlock to unlock it, he realizes they must be in one of the highest spires, because he can see out for eons – almost the ends of the earth. He stares, dumbfounded, at the clouds tickling the mountain tops, at the blanket of forest swaying lightly in the afternoon breeze. He can hear birds singing, here away from the bustle of the palace below.

“John,” Sherlock says behind him, and John turns away, reluctantly. Sherlock is watching him with a small hint of excitement. It makes his face look nicer, less angular and sharp. “You’re always welcome here. I’ve coded my door to allow you entrance, you need only touch it once.”

John does so, and arches a brow. “You’ve got your door locked with magic? Isn’t that a little excessive?”

“Not in the slightest,” Sherlock replies, and pushes it open.

John considers if he should have been surprised by what he encounters when he opens the door, and then immediately dismisses it. Of _course_ Sherlock has a laboratory, as good at magic as he is. There’s a massive counter in the center of the room, spread stem to stern with bottles, liquids, containers and machinery like John has never seen before. In the corner of the room two massive cauldrons sat on a raised pedestal, one filled with a blue substance and being stirred by a spoon seemingly on its own. The curved wall of the spire itself is home to thousands of books, and as John passes them he notes the titles -- science, philosophy, and surprisingly, the study of crime. There’s even a small cot, which looks as lived in as Sherlock’s suite had. Every inch of the room is crammed tight with _some_ thing useful, and though it takes John a moment, the pieces of the puzzle come together quickly, forming a picture in his mind he was stupid not to have seen before. “You’re a knight.”

Sherlock, bouncing on his heels like a kid showing off his bedroom to a close friend. “Not quite,” he says, and drags John over to the counter. “Look closer.”

John does, glancing over small containers with fibers and residues, a hair even, and a sketch of a man he hasn’t seen before. “I don’t – what is this?”

“I’m not a knight,” Sherlock says again, and rummages around the countertop until he produces one of the magic tablets that record information. John’s never actually seen one up close, and he watches with fascination as Sherlock scrolls through it with a flick of magic before showing John. “Our realm isn’t quite like yours – royalty isn’t expected to join the fighting class. Prohibited, in fact, which is a shame as my brother would have made an excellent general. All the same, I do what I can to assist my uncle, most often at times when brains are needed more than brawn.”

“The gray haired man, right?” John asks, touching a beaker that looks as if it’s filled with the saliva from an animal. “Sir Lestrade. Did I get him in trouble?”

Sherlock waves a hand. “Of course not, Ghregh was my mother’s brother. That’s not the _point_.”

“What are you inspecting now?”

Sherlock dances around to the other side of the counter, and John climbs up onto a small pile of books so he can see over it with more ease. He hasn’t yet met this version of his mate, who looks much more like the young man he is, a healthy flush on his cheeks and pleasure written into every line. It’s strange to witness, and at the same time reassuring – that he hadn’t married something as cold as the palace itself. Sherlock looks far from cold now, eyes burning brightly not with magic, but the thrill of his work.

He goes on, and on, and _on_ , but John finds himself interested despite himself – can see why Sherlock’s services are needed, even necessary. They had nothing like this at home, and though John had always done his best to investigate problems, to get to the heart of the matter, sometimes that wasn’t enough. This was the very basis of Sherlock’s magic, and he was able to twist it and make it do beautiful, extraordinary things in the name of justice. He can’t help but get caught up in the excitement of it, and every time he asks an intelligent question Sherlock lights up, stumbling over his words to explain, to correct, to lay out the facts.

In the end, when they finally look up, the sun has crested and begun to ink into the sky, and Sherlock stops mid-word, catching himself. John grins, delighted to watch him flush now with embarrassment – it’s a good look on him. “I’ve kept you all day,” he says.

“Not like I was doing anything else,” John replies, amused. “Why didn’t you tell me about this before?”

“I’m strictly not supposed to be doing it,” Sherlock says, coming back around the counter as John steps down from the pile of books. “While it’s an open secret, of course my father knows about it, but he – I think he wishes I could be a more active part of the council, instead of chasing useless dreams.”

John looks up at him. “You won’t live under his rule forever, Sherlock. One day you’ll be king, and you can do what you like.”

Sherlock snorts, amused, but his eyes are warm when they meet John’s. “Perhaps.”

The trip back down to the lower levels is a short one, but already John can tell things might be… easier between them. Though their companionship is new, fragile, and just as likely to crumble, it _is_ a companionship, and more than he could have expected.

John dreads what will happen when Sherlock comes to him again, and he think Sherlock must as well, because after dinner he only presses a chaste kiss to John’s cheek and bids him a good night.

 

.

The rest of the week progresses much like that first day. Precisely at eleven each morning Sherlock pulls him away from the tutors who, once they realize it’s become a _pattern_ , bring it up with Sherlock, and then the Lord of the Seven Moons. Rather than put a stop to it, as John half expects, the Lord leaves them to their adventures, reminding Sherlock only to stop for food and rest with consideration for John, as if he’s some wilting flower and not a battle-hardened knight.

John doesn’t mind, not even when they miss more than one meal. It comes as a surprise to him, how quickly they mesh together, how easily they work with one another. They spend countless hours in the laboratory, and though John has no magic himself, he’s able to assist in his own way. Sherlock is clearly in his element here, surrounded by science and inquiry and investigation. John is no closer to understanding it himself, but he comes to enjoy the process, to even predict it sometimes. Sherlock always gives him the most surprised, satisfying look in those moments.

At week’s end Sherlock catches a man who’s been stealing from the smithy, and John watches, rapt, as his mate not only explains in ridiculous detail every movement and choice the man had made to reach such ends, but describes the man’s poverty, his desperation, and above all his need for help. The Lord of the Seven Moons passes light judgment in the face of the evidence. When they leave the great hall Sherlock catches the expression on his face, and frowns lightly. “What?”

“Nothing.”

“No, what?”

But John just shakes his head.

The very next day is the Rest Day, and he's never been so grateful. He’d gotten a letter from Heriathin – the first, though not for lack of love, John knows, because he can see his father’s hand in the situation easily. He’d been so happy to hear from her, overjoyed even, but a sharp point of loneliness had embedded itself under his heart with her first word. He wouldn’t have traded their positions for the world, but a part of him wonders what would have happened if he’d stayed. If he’d been able to remove James from the picture. If he’d been able to wiggle out of this marriage. If he’d stood up to his father. He’d be on the training field, working his body hard, training his men to be the best army they could be. Not here, growing softer by the day, waiting to give an alpha he didn’t need a child he doesn’t want.

It isn’t fair, heavens it isn’t fair, but he’d learned long ago that life wasn’t fair and it didn’t do to dwell on dreams.

His mind is still spinning and his emotions are completely out of sync, so he allows himself the rare luxury of staying in bed for a little while, curled up in a patch of weak sun. The heat feels marvelous on his skin, makes him think of days past when he’d ended up somewhere just this, running and running and then collapsing with pleasure into the first meadow he found, letting the heat soak into his aching muscles.

He’s in that comfortable place between waking and dreaming, floating on a cloud of glorious bliss. The knock on his door is completely unappreciated. “Come in.”

It’s Sherlock. Of course it’s Sherlock – John sits up, pulling his robe on as he goes. “Oh, hello, sorry, is everything alright?”

Sherlock shakes his head, embarrassment coloring his face. “No, I – forgive me, I had no idea you were still—” 

“No, it’s – it’s alright, I was just being lazy,” John replies, climbing to his feet and tying his robe tightly.

“As you should, it’s the Rest Day,” Sherlock says with a self-depreciating smile on his face. “I’ll leave you to it.”

“No, I mean. You had to have come for something.”

Sherlock inclines his head. “Only to ask if you’d like to go to the village today.”

“To the village?” John repeats, eyes wide. “Are you kidding?”

“It was only a—John,” and he laughs, surprising them both, when John whips off his robe and all but vaults the bed to his wardrobe.

The air is bitingly cold, and soon enough fall would turn into John’s first winter in the Realm of the Seven Moons. When Sherlock had realized that John’s winter clothing would not be even close to enough he’d taken him to the royal tailor and gotten all of his measurements, ordering a proper wardrobe for when the first frost set in. It had been as embarrassing as it was unpleasant, but the tailor had been sensitive to John’s needs and had made certain to tell him that all clothing would be easily altered if he –

Well.

For now, until the clothing is finished, John has on his sturdiest boots, his thickest socks, and a cloak from Sherlock that the tailor had shortened. He is, in fact, pleasantly warm when they set out on foot.

“I don’t know if I’ve told you this,” John says, breathing in the whistling mountain air deeply, “but the palace is beautiful.”

Sherlock inclines his head, arms tucked behind his back as they walk. John knows him now, and is all too certain that Sherlock is looking everywhere and cataloguing everything, regardless of first impression. “It is built on centuries-old magic,” he says, as they begin their trek across the enormous bridge. There are knights following them at a respectful distance. “Each generation adds to its majesty, drawing on the particular talent of each man, and each man in return never receives that magic back. He gives it, freely, to the whole.”

“What did your father contribute?”

“Many things. He expanded this bridge, strengthened the walls around the village.” They pass a cart laden with breads and cheeses – John grins, delighted to see something so similar to home – and Sherlock stops, purchases a few small treats for them both.

The bread is delicious – thick, hot, tasting of flour and wilderness and home, a pleasure of the heart as much as the mouth. John chews, tossing a few crumbs to a group of birds on the bridge. “Can I ask you a question?”

“So long as it isn’t overly stupid.”

John snorts, tossing another morsel at the birds, who are following them now, hopeful. “Why are you set to inherit the throne and not your brother?”

“I’d wondered when you would ask,” Sherlock says. A group of children run by, laughing and screaming, stopping only to give them the briefest of bows. Sherlock looks momentarily annoyed and John doesn’t laugh, but only just. “Mycroft is impotent,” he says. “He has no magic, and can father no children, and so my father felt that, for the good of the Realm, the title should pass to me.”

John thinks on that a moment. “Bit cold, isn’t it? No magic doesn’t mean he’d make a bad king.”

“I argued the same, but my father is something of a traditionalist,” Sherlock says. He glances over at him. “My father promised him a dozen official sounding titles, unnecessarily in hindsight. Mycroft never argued the decision – he no more wants the crown than I do.”

“There’s certainly a lot of nonsense in the fine print,” John agrees, and makes Sherlock smile.

The village itself is teeming with life. It’s very different from the cool sterility of the palace, earthy where the palace is bare. There are hundreds of people, children and the elderly and women and men, each on their own errands. Many stop to say hello, to bow, to talk to Sherlock as if he isn’t their prince but someone they can bring their problems to. “When do you think it’ll be?” An old woman asks of him, making John turn red and Sherlock’s smile freeze on his face. “It’s been months now, Prince Sherlock.”

“Hopefully soon,” is all he tells her.

John thinks that’s the last of it, but they’re asked the question over and over. People smile at him and one of the children touches his stomach, much to her mother’s embarrassment. It’s apparent soon enough that Sherlock regrets bringing him as much as John regrets coming. He ducks them both into a small café, away from prying eyes and whispering. Or, well, at least not quite so much of it anyhow. “John, I—” Sherlock begins, but John waves it away.

They have tea, warm and lovely, and a comfortable silence falls between them. It’s the first time they’ve been away from the palace, and he feels less restricted here, less like he’s going to combust from the pressure. The townsfolk are curious but polite, and soon enough they forget about them both, getting on with the business of their day.

John glances up from his tea at his mate, who is himself staring out the window. John follows his line of sight to a woman, a _beautiful_ woman, standing at a vendor’s cart. “Do you ever wish that… that your father had secured a female omega for you? Is that why you said those things about my sister?”

Sherlock frowns sharply. “There is a reason why I was twenty four before I was married.” When John looks at him blankly, Sherlock adds, “The princesses my father presented to me had little appeal.”

“Oh.” John frowns. “You like—”

“Yes,” he says, with a light cough. “Though I suppose it wouldn’t have mattered in the long run. I made several young ladies cry in the process, which was both unfortunate and disgusting.” Sherlock looks at him. “It seems foolish to ask at this point, but…you?”

“It’s different for me,” John says, shaking his head. He feels strange discussing this, strange even acknowledging it, but this place, this new life, has softened more than just his body. “Being omega is like being two different people, and wanting two separate things, only it’s all mixed up together.”

“Fascinating,” Sherlock says, and when John glares he waves a hand as if batting away a fly. “Oh, not your personal anguish. I’ve always found it surprising that there are only four families like yours in the Ten Realms.”

John shrugs. “A common ancestor, I suppose. My line is very lucky that we are born as we are and there are rarely complications. The Realm of the Nesting Eagles had a death just last year, a little one born without any clear distinction. They don’t often live for very long when that happens.”

“Something I’ve never understood.”

John shrugs again, plays with the handle of his cup. “It’s just one of those things, Sherlock. People like you can access their magic, use it like a tool. Ours is much different. I don’t feel magic, I can’t create magic, but I _am_ magic in a way, like all those who are born in the plain Realms. There are dominant traits, but there are also lesser traits.” Sherlock is soaking it up like a sponge. John arches a brow. “Didn’t your teachers ever explain to you what omegas are?”

“There hasn’t been an omega married to the royal family in centuries.” At John’s blank look, he adds, “I know enough.”

“Your mother?”

“Beta.” 

John’s frown sharpens. “Is that why the royal physicians keep coming and inspecting me? Bloody hell, Sherlock, they know I can only get pregnant during heat, right?” Sherlock’s face colors and John groans. “You can’t be serious.”

“As I said, there hasn’t been an omega married to our line for centuries,” Sherlock replies, uncomfortable and pink around the edges. “I despise ignorance.”

“I know. I know you do, which is a trait your physicians should share.” John props his chin on his hand. “You do know there is an omega in this room aside from me.”

And Sherlock, ignoring all propriety, actually lifts his head and _scents the air_. John is instantly mortified, and presses both hands over his face because Sherlock doesn’t _stop_ until he’s satisfied, even when there are soft, warm chuckles from the patrons around them. “Twenty eight people, one omega – the old woman behind the bar -- five alphas, twenty two betas. Yes, John, I’m well aware that omegas exist in the common population, but to a much lesser degree than your homeland. There are only twenty eight omegas in our entire kingdom, ten of whom live here in the village. All, save for the young boy who works as the blacksmith’s assistant, are women. Which is why I’m asking you for information.”

“Well then, ask your questions.”

Sherlock doesn’t pretend to misunderstand. He leans in close, his eyes sparkling. “You are male, and yet you can conceive. Is the opposite true of your sister?”

John realizes, quite suddenly, just how ignorant these people are of his kind. That Sherlock wasn’t kidding when he said omegas make up a very small portion of the population, that for all their advancements it seems likely that these people are still shaking bone rattles or some nonsense over pregnant omegas. “Sherlock, are you asking if my sister has a penis?”

“What? No,” Sherlock says, except he _is_ and John gets to watch him flush a brilliant red. He’s smiling before he can stop himself, and Sherlock glares. “Don’t tease me.”

“I’m being totally serious, I swear,” he says with a grin. “Omega females can’t sire children. Neither can I.”

“No?”

“Of course not,” John says, because Sherlock’s serious. He’s dead serious about not knowing, and John’s suddenly a little bit horrified because these people are supposed to help him _have a child_. “Tomorrow, you’re coming and letting Lady Hudson drone at you about alphas and omegas, as that woman may be the only one in the whole kingdom who knows what the hell you’ve gotten yourself into.”

Sherlock is red as a tomato, and it’s terrible, and beautiful, and John’s just a little bit heartbroken. “Sherlock. Omega’s can’t sire children. What comes out of my body isn’t sperm. Do you remember our first night?”

It’s very possible Sherlock is going to spontaneously catch fire. He nods, shortly.

“I have two types of, uh…” He looks around, lowers his voice. “The glands, just inside, are my omega glands, and when touched they release the pheromones to attract an alpha. They also serve to relax my muscles, and release the thin substance that you alphas love. It’s superficial, the way my body opens during heat. The thicker slick, when you touched my – that is,” and John hates how embarrassed he is, he should be above this, but Sherlock is listening with such rapt attention that he can’t stop now. “When you touched the opening deeper inside it released the true lubrication that omegas produce during sexual heat. We have to, because alpha knots don’t usually go down for several minutes, sometimes even an hour, and without it there’d be a lot of pain.”

“And this is what you release, upon orgasm.”

“Something like that, yeah. I don’t know the specific mechanics of it myself,” he admits, “but I know you’ve noticed I don’t have testicles. My penis brings my pleasure, but it also – when I orgasm, my womb begins contracting. The knot serves as a seal over the opening, and the contractions pull the semen into me. Which, to be honest, is why everyone’s so surprised I’m not pregnant, considering you’re an alpha and you lot historically produce enough semen to fill a bathtub.”

Sherlock flushes to the roots of his hair, and John grins, studying this ridiculous man in front of him because oh, heavens, it’s fun debasing him of all the myths the priestesses probably told him before John’s arrival. “I see.”

“You did ask,” John says with a hum.

“Fair enough. Done?”

He nods. Sherlock pays (tries to pay, anyway, the owner won’t take a single cent from him, so Sherlock slips it into the man’s pocket when he’s not looking) and they head back out into the village square. 

Without any warning at all, Sherlock takes his hand. John surprises himself by letting him.


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> One cold, fall morning, during the third month of John's marriage, one of the student knights is found dead in the courtyard.

One cold, fall morning, during the third month of John's marriage, one of the student knights is found dead in the courtyard.

The worst bit – the very worst bit of the whole business – is that it’s a little girl who finds him, while she’s out early to fetch milk for her mother. John can hear her screams before he even gets there, half dressed and running behind Sherlock, heart somewhere up in his throat.

Sir Lestrade is already at the scene, in nightshirt and trousers and carrying his sword; so is Sherlock’s brother. Sherlock gives them both a cold look before bellowing, “Clear the area!”

The little girl latches herself to John’s waist and he lifts her into his arms, lets her bury her face in his shoulder. Her small shoes are covered in milk and broken glass, and her sobs shake her entire body. He doesn't have much experience in the way of children, but she seems comforted enough under the circumstances as he shushes her gently, strokes her long, black hair from her eyes. 

It takes a long time to calm the girl, even after her mother arrives, out of breath and horrified. John leaves them both with the physicians and makes his way to Sherlock, who is crouched over the body. 

“The little girl alright?” Sir Lestrade asks.

“Shaken up,” John reports, and sighs at the state of the poor lad. Such a waste. “She didn’t see anything, came on him already like this – she said he thought he might have fallen.”

Sherlock nods absently as if he's only barely listening, and draws a circle mid air that ignites with blue fire, then dims. It’s the first John’s seen him do proper magic, and it sends a fission of _something_ through him, fear or awe or a mix of both.

Everything in the circle seems closer and sharper somehow, as if they’re able to see with a hawk's vision. Sherlock leads the circle lightly with one fingertip, frowning thoughtfully as he works. “Dead six hours, maybe a bit more.”

“How do you know?” Sir Lestrade asks.

“Don’t ask stupid questions, you know how I hate that.” Sherlock leans in close, peering at the man’s fingers through his magic circle. He does something very complicated looking, murmurs a word, and a glass bottle just _appears_ into the palm of his hand, as if it were always there. John recognizes it as one of the bottles from the laboratory. Sherlock coaxes a few small fibers from the young knight’s cloak and shoes, and then lets them waft, feather-light, into the bottle. “He was placed here.”

“Placed?”

“Yes, obviously,” Sherlock replies, and blows the circle away as if it were a ring of pipe smoke. He stands, bottle in hand. “John?”

John straightens up too. “Yes?”

Sherlock waves a hand at the body.

Surely he can’t mean – “No.”

“I need a fresh pair of eyes.”

“ _Sherlock_ ,” Sir Lestrade says, a note of steel in his voice.

But Sherlock doesn’t answer, keeping that laser-like gaze on John. “Well?”

“Well, what?”

“What do you mean, ‘Well, what’?” Sherlock demands. “There’s a dead body lying here. Tell me how it got here.”

“How should I know?” John demands right back.

“Surely you must see it.” He comes round John’s back, sets his hands on his shoulders. John surprises himself by thinking that, if they were alone, he might have leaned back into his warmth. “ _Look._ ”

And, heaven help him, John does.

The lad is on his stomach, and John notes the way his trousers are a bit out of place, a bit tugged down, as if he were dragged. His boots are muddy with dew and the light frost of the night before, but the frost had only stuck to the trees and foliage, had melted long before sunrise from the stone courtyard. The lad was bludgeoned, and John crouches, looking at the wound – a morning star, a small one, just enough to crack open his skull and drive the bone into his brain. A swift, painless death, at least. He notes the cuts on the forearms, the blood staining the cuffs of his sleeves, and when he leans down, sniffing lightly at the lad’s face, he catches the pungent scent of mead and of something sick-sweet.

He looks up at Sherlock. “Well. Murdered, I’d say.”

Sherlock waves a hand. “Boring. How?”

Sir Lestrade is watching, and a bit off, silent and hulking and mysterious, Sherlock’s brother is doing the same. “I don’t know if—”

“John,” Sherlock interrupts lightly. “How?”

He scratches his head. “He went to a pub – in the village. He was lured to his death outside the city gates, which accounts for the debris on his boots and cloak. This time of year, the damp, the forest sticks like glue. Bludgeoned to death, but there was a fight of some kind. There are cuts on his hands and arms, so a sword, or a long knife. I’ve no idea why he was brought out here to the courtyard, though.”

He’s painfully aware of the stares he’s getting, but he can’t dwell on it when Sherlock comes round John and crouches beside him. “John is correct – he did go to a pub, the Elvin Crossing, to meet with someone who had been blackmailing him.”

Lestrade sucks in a breath, and John looks between them, uncomprehending. “What?”, but Sherlock keeps talking. “He met with his blackmailer, had a pint – and was drugged, leading me to believe that there was an accomplice. He was lured to his death outside of the city gates, as my mate said, but _not_ through the main gate. The blackmailer found a way into the city undetected.”

Mycroft turns away, begins speaking to a woman John hadn’t even noticed was there – a tall, elegant girl not much older than him.

“Already drugged at this point,” Sherlock continues, “his blackmailer and the accomplice had little problem ending Sir Evengingwood’s life. They attempted swords first, as John said, obvious from the fresh wounds on his forearms, but they hadn’t counted on his excellent training, even while drugged.” Sherlock looks up at his uncle. “Murdered, and then dragged back here for us to find.”

He stands and takes John’s hand right there in front of everyone. “I’ll be able to give you concrete facts soon, Uncle, once I gather more information and analyze these samples.”

John had seen Sherlock playing in his laboratory, filling his hours with experiments for his own amusement, but he’s never seen him like this, in the middle of a serious investigation. He drags John all over the palace and grounds, often leading them away from where the knights were searching. He doesn’t seem to follow any set path, or adhere to any kind of pattern – just when John thinks he’s figured out his next move, Sherlock will take them somewhere completely different.

They return to the laboratory twice, to check on the evidence he’d collected from the body, and then to look for a book that has, apparently, fallen off the edge of the world.

Finding the damn book would be easier if the books were actually _in any sort of order_ , instead of shoved pell-mell onto the shelves without any thought to their general relevance. Sherlock usually calls the books to him – John had ducked out of the way of flying books several times in the past weeks – but books, Sherlock had assured him, have personalities. Sometimes they don’t want to be found, and heaven help them, this was one of those times.

Sherlock has made a disaster of the room, sweeping the books from the shelves in torrents. The pages and bindings are flapping wildly, as if… as if they are _annoyed_ at Sherlock, and the sound is not unlike a flock of birds trapped in a space too small to contain them.

One of the books soars down from its hiding place atop a potion shelf, knocks into John’s arm, and when he catches it he realizes--

“ _Damn it_ ,” Sherlock bellows, shoving a pile of books from the countertop in frustration. They land with a crash, knocking into the cauldron with such force that it echoes.

“Sherlock,” John says. When he tries to touch Sherlock’s shoulder he’s sharply rebuffed, so much so that he takes a step back. 

His mate glares at him. “Don’t give me that little lost babe look right now, Jounhin, I’ve got far too much to worry about. I am _not_ in the mood for anything you might have to offer.”

He’s startled by his own hurt, then by the sharp point of anger. “Fuck you very much,” he says, and shoves the book Sherlock had been looking for, _Dendrology in the Northern Territories_ , under his nose.

All of the noise finally, blessedly stops, the books once again becoming still. Sherlock’s face flushes red with frustration, with something else. It’s a good look on him. “Oh.”

“Yes, _oh_ ,” John replies, crossing his arms.

“I… well.” His alpha shifts, looks away – at the book, at the wall, to the window. “Where was it?”

“Up on your shelf. If what you said is true, that books have feelings too, you scared them half to death with your temper tantrum.”

“That was not my intention.” Sherlock’s eyes finally meet his. “I apologize.”

“You don’t even know what you’re apologizing for,” John mutters, as the books begin to slowly float back to their shelves. “What did you need the book for, anyway?”

“To… That is, to be certain that the forest residue found on the victim’s clothing comes from our area,” Sherlock replies. He clears his throat lightly. “I had no right to – what I mean to say is—”

“It’s alright,” John says, and tries for a smile that Sherlock hesitantly returns. “Though honestly, you need to fix up your shelves a bit. This is ridiculous.”

“I do,” Sherlock concedes. He looks at John for a moment more, as if he's never quite seen him before, but then he's turning back to his experiment and just like that they’re off and running again.

 

.

After three days, they’re no closer to catching the murderer than they were when the body was discovered.

Sherlock works around the clock, until his face is pulled into lines of exhaustion, but the culprit seems to have disappeared without a trace. On the third day, in spite of Sherlock’s insistence that it be postponed, Sir Eveningwood is given a warrior’s burial, honored by the Lord of the Seven Moons and his entire court.

John comes to a stomach-twisting realization, after the ceremony. Sherlock had left as soon as the Priestess finished her prayers, sending Sir Eveningwood to the ancestors, but Lord Memnoc had requested John remain if Sherlock would not, as a symbol of Sherlock’s house. He hadn’t wanted to, only the heavens knew, but one doesn’t say no to the Lord of the Seven Moons.

John had known since his arrival that he had no friends in this Realm, but he hadn’t realized he’d cultivated enemies. The betas at Court are stunningly beautiful, the products of magic and money. The women are long, and slim, with hair done in beautiful whirls so complicated that the effect is one of movement, as beautiful and flowing as their long, satin gowns. The men are like something out of a dream, tall and broad with that dark, lustrous hair, and always dressed as elegantly as the women. They smell _refined_ , like money and power, like sex. 

Next to them, John is short, and weathered, and blond. His hands are dry and rough, and his jaw is square instead of long and tapered. He has approximately twenty thousand cow licks, and his fringe never stays where it should. He is what they think he is – the southern cousin, an amusement, and not nearly good enough for the crowned prince of this Realm. 

The way they look at him makes his stomach twist, makes the battered, beaten shield around his heart grow ever-weaker. The comments alone, spoken well within his earshot, are enough to light his cheeks on fire. His stomach roils and his fingers tighten around his glass so they won’t go to the dagger at his belt.

“John,” someone says, and he turns to find his law-brother behind him. John bows in greeting, short and polite, and Mycroft returns it, an ironic little tilt to his mouth. “Are you alright?”

“Wondering how I’ve missed the fact that the court hates me.”

Mycroft waves the comment away. “How’s Sherlock?”

He’s the first person to ask after him, and John finds himself pitifully grateful to talk about it. “Behaving like a complete lunatic. He won’t eat, won’t sleep – I had to shove him into the bath yesterday, _literally_. I thought the warm water would help, but he just popped right out and kept on as if nothing had happened.”

“That sounds about right,” Mycroft replies, and offers his elbow to John. Though it grates on his every nerve John takes it, if only because Mycroft is at least an entire head taller and can lead them better through the crowd. John has never felt so much out of place, and the looks he receives as they pass are enough to make his blood curdle. “Ignore them,” Mycroft murmurs to him, as if in secret, patting John’s hand. “Jealousy is such an ugly trait.”

There’s something about Mycroft that he’s still not comfortable with, but neither does he want to shy away. Mycroft’s so obviously protective of Sherlock, of his entire family – he’s just strange, very strange, even stranger than his younger brother. Somehow, in some odd way, that’s reassuring. “I’m sure it doesn’t help that I’m not…”

“It does not.” They stop at the edge of the crowd, near to the throne where Sherlock’s father is speaking to Sir Lestrade. “You are but a fortnight from your heat, correct?”

He doesn’t know how Mycroft knows. Usually John’s the first to smell that sweet omega smell, and he discreetly scents the air. Nothing. “How do you know that?”

“Observation. If you require me to speak to Sherlock on your behalf –”

“No,” John says quickly, shaking his head. “No, I – no. Thank you for offering, but Sherlock is doing everything he’s supposed to.”

“Is he?” 

“That’s really none of your business,” John replies calmly.  
“It isn’t,” Mycroft agrees, “and I apologize if I’ve offended you. I simply know my brother far too well, and wanted to be certain he was ‘on the right track’, so to speak.”

“He is.” John stares into his drink. “I think it’s me.”

“The physicians have checked you.”

“As often as they can get their paws on me,” John says, cheeks burning again. “I can’t actually believe I’m telling you this.” The first person to give him a kind word and John’s spilling his guts out, just like that.

Mycroft doesn’t tease him. “I’ve been told I’m a good listener.”

John shakes his head, stares at the ground. “They said everything is alright.”

“The waiting is often worse,” Mycroft replies sagely. “Have you considered going to my brother at the first flush of heat, rather than wait for him to perform his duty?”

“Go to him?” John repeats, eyes wide. “For _that_?”

“Of course for that,” Mycroft says with a smile.

The very _thought_ – “I couldn’t do that.”

“Why not?”

“What do you mean ‘why not’?” John demands. “That’s – that’s –”

“Don’t tell me you’re _embarrassed_ ,” Mycroft asks with an arched brow.

“I’m not,” John says, angry now – with himself, with this stupid situation full of ridiculous people. “What happens between me and Sherlock is personal.”

“Think it over."

 

.

Winter arrives the month of Sir Eveningwood’s death, so suddenly and completely that John isn’t prepared for it.

He wakes up the morning of the first snowfall shivering so hard his teeth chatter and the very bones in his body quiver. It’s only after he’s wrapped himself in every quilt on his bed and waddled like a proper idiot to his fireplace that he begins to warm up, though he is nowhere near to comfortable when his servants, and then tutors, arrive.

The new clothing that Sherlock had requested made for him are what these people consider ‘warm’, John knows, but even in furs and wool and thick-soled boots he’s cold, uncomfortably so in the enormous, drafty castle. He has no idea how everyone can go about on their merry way as if this lunacy is _normal_. It sends the physicians scrambling, checking him from head to toe so often that he wants to scream.

The only place that is even moderately close to what John considers comfortable is Sherlock’s laboratory. His mate is all but living there anyway, in the aftermath of Sir Eveningwood’s murder, and doesn’t seem to mind either way if John joins him. Or perhaps more correctly, Sherlock doesn’t seem to notice John’s presence at _all_ , so John spends his afternoons there, and when Sherlock doesn’t say anything about it, some of his nights as well.

He likes the way the little laboratory makes him feel, secluded, away from the noise of the palace down below. Up here, with the view that goes on to the edge of the world, with the cauldrons and the fluttering books and Sherlock, it all feels very much like _home_.

It’s how he comes to be curled up on the cot, one lazy afternoon. He’d fallen asleep reading a book of poetry by one of Sherlock’s dusty relatives, but it had been a light sleep, one foot in each world until the waking one had pulled him back. He’s boneless, relaxed under the patchwork blanket Sherlock kept on the cot as old as the palace itself. It smells musty, too many nights and not enough washes, but John likes it, the smell of alpha and books and sleep. 

He’s in heat, he knows, and just begun, like Mycroft predicted. It’s different from what he’s experienced before, and he doesn’t know why. Usually, even in the first few hours of heat he becomes a mindless and panting thing, begging to be mounted and bred. This feels different, a sweeter sensation. It’s nothing like the pain of heat, the fever that can bring him to his knees. He can smell himself, just slightly, and though his stomach tightens with the first tension of want, a cramp low and deep that makes him shiver and stretch, hoping to ease the discomfort. 

Sherlock, as always these days, is at his table, puttering at his equipment. The sun is beginning its slow descent across the sky, and the light cascading through the window reflects the copper in Sherlock’s hair, catching it ablaze. The sunlight falls across the muscles of his back, his broad shoulders, his hands as they dance across his beakers and books, working, working. His long legs curl around the stool, keeping his balance.

John stirs, a shiver of heat pooling in his belly separate from what his body is doing. A part of him acknowledges that it was bound to happen but another, more secret part thinks that this has been coming for some time. He’s fascinated by the dichotomy that exists in Sherlock, one which John can relate to, something beyond Sherlock's interest in science and magic, beyond his fierce intelligence. He’s cold as ice and yet there’s something warm about him, a facet of his personality that is as intuitive to him as his magic, that makes him smile and flush with embarrassment and stare at John when he thinks John isn’t looking. It had calmed John on their wedding night, had made him open to all the nights that had come after it, and even now it draws him in, like a moth to a flame. 

He realizes, stunned, just how much he wants to have that intellect focused completely on him, how much he wants Sherlock to take him apart and put him back together. He doesn’t want the impersonal nights in his suite, Sherlock spreading him open like John’s made out of porcelain, grunting to completion in the dark. He doesn’t want it to be a sacred duty. He wants the flavor of him, the heat of him, all over. Inside.

He hears Mycroft, in his ear, _Have you considered going to my brother first?_

“Sherlock?”

His mate doesn’t answer – he’s got an active charm lit before him, like the circle he’d made over Sir Eveningwood’s body, but this one seems to focus even closer, down to the fiber. John doesn’t even recognize the image Sherlock is looking at through the circle, just red and yellow blobs floating about. 

It takes very little for him to slip his hand down under the blanket, touch his own cock. It’s hard, very hard, and he gives it one slow, careful stroke, root to tip. The sensation is wonderful, makes him want more, makes him want _Sherlock_ , who can fill the ache inside of him, where he’s gone wet. 

But Sherlock isn’t paying attention, Sherlock is focused on his work, and Mycroft may have a point.

John climbs out from under the blanket, flushed with his own need. He’s hard and Sherlock is _clueless_ , but that’s alright because John comes round him, murmurs, “Sherlock?”

“Ah, John,” Sherlock says, focused on his charm and scribbling into a note-taking book without looking at it. His handwriting is atrocious. “I wondered when you’d wake up. Hungry?”

“Yes,” John says, and nudges in between Sherlock’s knees. His mate tries to say something, a censure of some sort, but it dies in his throat when John takes the great liberty of untying his trousers, spreading them open and nudging his cock out into the warm air. “John?” Sherlock asks, nostrils flaring, “Are you--” but John is already taking advantage of his short stature. He leans down over Sherlock’s lap and kisses the tip of his cock.

Sherlock makes a noise John’s never heard from him before, something so charmingly surprised it warms John’s heart to hear it. He kisses again, light, drawing his tongue along the crown, which begins to grow hard under his gentle, patient touch. Sherlock is breathing like he’s just run around the entire perimeter of the palace, trembling fingers lightly stroking through John’s hair, but even that touch isn’t enough.

God help him he’s never done this, never had it done to him either, and yet he’s hooked from the first touch of his tongue to the slit of Sherlock’s cock. The flavor of him makes John’s blood pound, dropping low to his own cock which he thinks has never been so hard. He has no idea what he’s doing, but even so it isn’t long before Sherlock is shuddering under his touch, crying out hoarsely, his hands tangled in John’s hair. He’s gloriously, beautifully hard, knot ready and hot and full, waiting to swell, and John thinks sometime not too long from now he would willingly have Sherlock spill in his mouth, but there’s an ache inside, an ache he can’t reach and which can’t be satisfied with his own hand. He lets go of Sherlock’s cock with one last lick and drives up to kiss him, to wrap his arms around his neck and pull him skin-close.

Sherlock lifts him with frightening ease up onto the countertop, pushing his work to the side with a muttered spell to preserve it. He’s trembling, and staring at John like he’s never seen him before, sweet and wonderful and oh, but John’s father had said this would happen, this affection of the heart that couldn’t be helped. It hurts but he can’t stop to think about it, not now, not when he’s lying back against the countertop and Sherlock is fighting with John’s trousers. John takes over for him, yanking his belt open and shoving his pants down and off, spreading his legs wide. Sherlock’s pupils are blown from the first scenting, and he growls so deep in his chest that John can feel it reverberate into his skin. He moans, the sound soft and _omega_ , but Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind, and presses two fingers inside of him.

It’s quick, and Sherlock is trying to be gentle, John knows he is, but Sherlock’s cock is so hard it’s twitching with blood and John wants it, he wants it, and he says, “ _Please_ ,” and his mate moans like a man dying.

John spreads his legs wide, and Sherlock drives into him with such force that the breath is punched out of John’s lungs. Sherlock pulls back and drives forward once more, grabbing hold of John’s legs and pulling him close, skin against skin. “Yes,” John says, arching back into the next thrust, which sends him skidding across the counter until Sherlock jerks him in again. “Hard!”

“ _John_ ,” Sherlock moans, presses his face to John’s thigh as he thrusts, again, again, a rhythm that pleases them both. He’s never – not like this, he’s always been so gentle, but John doesn’t _want_ gentle, gentle doesn’t make his body sing. “Harder!” he snarls, and Sherlock does, heavens he follows John’s command, until John’s perception of him as cold and impersonal is forever ruined by the sweat rolling down his flushed face, by his lips, bitten red, by his eyes, flashing bright and green and _home_. This is what John wants, this is what he’s wanted all along, Sherlock _fucking_ him, and he drops his hand down between his legs, fists his wet cock.

It’s sex and something else, something primal and deep and throbbing in the blood. It’s the setting sun lighting Sherlock aflame, as if John’s being taken by some otherworldly creature. It’s Sherlock finally stretching his legs, like a saddled horse being driven across the plains for the first time, nothing but wind and the pound of hooves and the feel of his heart roaring between John’s thighs. John glories in it, in him, in this feeling of completion and love, so much love that his chest feels as tight as a drum.

He spills, sobbing Sherlock’s name; Sherlock thrusts and stays, swells hot and hard and deep, moans escaping from him like falling leaves, scattered across John’s skin.

 

.

People are beginning to talk.

He tries to ignore it, he truly does, but the palace is starting to bed down for the winter and people get bored. With boredom comes gossip, and with gossip comes John's character being raked over the coals. It becomes apparent to John that his place is questioned, and that the members of the court no longer mind talking about it right where he can hear. He's a prince of his people and this is not his first time being the subject of gossip, but never has it been so ugly or so defacing. It _hurts_ because he can't defend himself, not without causing some sort of inter-Realm incident that would end in war. The Realms had fought over much less.

It’s only a matter of time before the gossip reaches higher ears, so John is half expecting it when he’s roused early from his bed one morning by a servant, who informs him he’s wanted in the grand hall. When he arrives Lord Memnoc is waiting, though thankfully not on his throne, which John hopes he’s somehow gathered is just a bit on the intimidating side. Directly behind the throne is a small antechamber, and it’s there that John finds not only Lord Memnoc, but to his surprise, Mycroft. He's standing beside his father’s chair, wine goblet in hand, and gives John a short nod before looking back to the unrolled parchment before him. 

John’s never seen his majesty in such informal attire – most often he wore the robes as were due his station, but today he’s in something warmer, hunting clothes and a thick, heavy fur over one shoulder. It’s strange, how much better they suit him. “Good morning, Jounhin. Please, sit.”

“Thank you, my lord,” he says, and does so. “Forgive me, is everything alright? Has there been a break in the murder investigation?”

“Unfortunately not,” his majesty replies. “A drink?”

"Thank you, no."

The Moon Lord grows quiet, contemplative -- John can see the family resemblance in the nose, the hairline, though both are much less severe in Sherlock, and much more pronounced in Mycroft. Finally, after what seems like an age, his majesty says, “I despise intrigue.”

John blinks. “I do too, my lord.”

“It drives me to madness,” Lord Memnoc continues, as if John hadn’t spoken. “I have always forbidden it in my court, and among those I trade my ore with.”

“I know, my lord,” John says, and wonders what Lord Memnoc would think if he knew about all the gossip that went on right under his nose. Still, as idyllic notions go it isn't an awful one. “My father often says that your strength of character has been an unshakable pillar of the Ten Realms.”

Lord Memnoc inclines his head, pleased, and steeples his fingers. “I have requested that one of your physicians come bed in my Realm for the winter.”

John is surprised, badly so, but Lord Memnoc continues, obviously choosing his words with great care. “Today marks three moons since your marriage to my son. You have seen the summer end, fall come and go, and now we are on the cusp of the great white winter and still, Jounhin, you are not with child.” He considers John over his fingers. “I ask that you be honest. Has your father lied to me, with his claim that you are able to bear the children of my Realm?”

It’s like the bottom of the world has opened up and John is slipping, slipping along the edge of it. He feels winded, heart fluttering under his ribs so fast it’s hard to catch a breath. Both men are looking at him with that piercing gaze, and John feels caught under it, trapped. “No,” he finally says. “No, it isn’t a lie.”

“I have known many lords and ladies of the plain realms to be as you are,” Lord Memnoc continues, “and I believe this to be true. My physicians have carefully examined you and my son, and they tell me that you are both fertile. Why do I yet wait for a child?”

“My lord,” John mumbles from numb lips. 

“Has he joined with you, as alpha?”

It’s like his worst nightmare. The world has not just opened up, but is unraveling all around him like threads in the wind, pulling and pulling until he begins to break apart. He doesn’t think he’s ever been so humiliated – he wants to shout, wants to scream _I’m trying, can’t you see that I’m trying?_ There’s a lump in his throat threatening to choke him. “My lord, yes.”

“You swear this?”

“I swear it to be true.”

John feels pinned by the man’s gaze, studied to the depths of his soul. The room is quiet for so long that John swears he can hear the sound of his own pulse racing under the flesh of his wrist. The shield around his heart is going to collapse, and no matter how hard he holds onto it pieces of it are crumbling to dust in his hands, leaving him stripped, laid bare.

“Tell me,” Lord Memnoc says finally. “You were raised by your father to be a warrior.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“And you were talented. So talented, in fact, that you became head of his knights.”

“Yes, my lord.”

“An expert marksman, I’ve been told. You never missed a shot. On the eve of your fifteenth year, you killed a bear from two hundred paces, clean through its heart.”

One of the best nights of his life. John’s father had been so proud he’d had the bear skin hung in the grand hall, so all would be witness to his son’s skill. “Yes, my lord,” he mumbles.

“How strange, then, that your sister would take the Elk in your final judgment.”

 _He knows_ , is all John thinks, ears roaring. 

“No, I – my lord—”

“Only the bravest of souls willingly face the unknown,” Lord Memnoc says, speaking over him. “It is a path strewn with fear and sacrifice, yet once we are on it we cannot stray.” He meets John’s eyes squarely. “There is the hand of fate in all we do. My eldest son bears witness to this, my decision in this matter.”

The Lord of the Seven Moons stands, and John does too, on legs that don’t want to hold him. “Let it be known. You are forbidden from leaving the palace. You will remain at my son’s side until the first spring thaw. If at this time you have still not come to be with child, Jounhin of the Horse Realm, I will annul this marriage and return you to your people.”

John feels as if he’ll never draw a breath again. Annulling the marriage means going back home in disgrace, and John knows his father enough to know that he will do as he had done to John's aunt -- rewrite the marriage contract, open the bids for John's hand to any vassal knight or landlord in the Realm. Men who would have no compulsion to be kind, men who would treat him as the whore of another man. 

He would never see Sherlock again.

The Lord’s face softens, so like his son, and he places a hand on John’s shoulder. “This is not my wish, Jounhin, for you are strong and kind, and an excellent match for my son. The resources of my house are at your disposal. Any and all aid will be rendered to you in this matter.”

John nods, bloodless and cold.

 

.

Lady Serra comes to the Realm of the Seven Moons by week's end. She brings with her gifts of goodwill and apology from the Horse Lord – silks and gems and twenty goats – and what appears to be an entire library of books and half of an apothecary. 

When John sees who has escorted her he almost draws his dagger, and it's only Mycroft’s quick grasp of his wrist that keeps him from doing something unforgivable. 

"Your highness," James, prince of the Wood Lords, says, bowing low.


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He’d been expecting the usual army of physicians to descend on him, and that it’s only Serra, and that he knows her so well, is something of a comfort.

“Good morning, John,” Lady Serra says.

There’s nothing ‘good’ about this particular morning, is what John thinks. It’s bitterly cold outside, and the Great Snow, as these people called it, would soon be upon them. He has no idea how it is that they had stayed here for all this time, thriving under this kind of assault, but John is freezing, all the bloody time, and it’s beginning to wear his nerves thin.

And so it is that he begins the day in a terrible mood, and things only get worse from there. The tutors are discussing what it would be like to carry a child this week, in a misguided attempt to assuage his fears, but all it does is make the fear worse. Fear made him angry, and anger made him snap, and they leave midway through his tirade without even giving him the satisfaction of finishing it.

The worst bit, the very, very worst bit, is that the man who had planned to marry his sister, the man who had told her, in detail, how he would rape her on their wedding night, is staying in the palace for the foreseeable future.

So no, the morning is not good, not in the least, but Serra is not so easily offended by his mood. She’s carrying her bag, and three books in her arms, and John glares at her from under the nest he’s made in the center of his bed.

He wants, badly, to curl up on the cot in Sherlock’s spire, wants the warmth and the company and to be away from all the eyes, but Sherlock is with his father on a hunting trip (John doubted any hunting on his mate’s part would actually occur, and the likelihood that Sherlock came back with renewed purpose in getting John with child is a good one) and the Lord had given him pardon to remain in the palace once he’d been made aware of the fact that John couldn’t actually stand the frigid air for more than an hour.

He’d been expecting the usual army of physicians to descend on him, and that it’s only Serra, and that he knows her so well, is something of a comfort. She walks across the room to him, and he realizes, startled, that she isn’t wearing much more than Sherlock had on his way out for the hunt. “I held the others off at the pass,” she says, amused. Her eyes are as warm as her hands, where they touch his cheek, his hand. “Why don’t you let me take a look at you.”

“Because that would mean getting out of my nest, and as you can see, I spent some time getting it just right,” he replies, glaring. “Why don’t you leave me alone?”

“Attitude isn’t going to work with me,” she sings, sits her bag on the bed and herself right after it. “How long has this been going on?”

“To what ‘this’ are you referring to?” John demands, muffled from under the blanket. “Take your pick, I’ve many miseries to choose from.”

“The cold, of course,” she says, cheerful. “It’s fairly pretty, if you ask me – I don’t think we’ve ever had a winter this white back home.” She nudges him up to sitting, ignoring his grumbling curses. “A bit on the nippy side though, I do admit.”

“Have you taken leave of your senses?” John demands. “It’s freezing!”

“So I see.” She tucks a corner of his blanket up more warmly over his shoulder. “How long have you been cold like this?”

“Since the weather began to change,” John says, the chill slipping down through the gaps in his blanket.

She hums, thoughtful, and opens up her bag of tricks. “Have you been eating normally?”

“More or less.”

“Want to explain that?”

“Is my father angry?” he asks suddenly.

The question doesn’t faze her, and she replies, without missing a beat, “Worried about you. You went through the change normally as a child, you’ve been in perfect health your entire life. And whatever the priestess says, John, this isn’t a matter of faith – your body should be able to do what it was biologically meant to do.” She touches his hand, catches his eyes. “Your father has been reassured that you’re doing what’s been asked of you, and Lord Memnoc has too. You’re just having a difficult time conceiving. To be frank, you’re lucky that I was in the palace at the time when the request for physicians came -- your father wanted to send _all_ of them.”

John stares at her with horror. Six to add to the _ten_ he already had. “How did you stop him?”

“By reminding him that I have extensive knowledge in omega pregnancy,” she says with a wry smile. “I helped your cousin to term just last season, if you remember. I’m the best in the plain Realms, John. I’m going to do my best to help you, but it’s a two-way partnership. You’ve got to be honest with me, and I’ll be honest right back. Alright?”

He can’t help but be comforted, can’t help but feel as if there is finally someone who is willing to be his companion in this, regardless of duty. He clenches his jaw until he has his emotions under control, and after a few moments, and a squeeze of Serra’s hand, he says, “Alright.”

“Good, that’s settled.” She pulls out a note-taking book from her bag. “Now we’re going to get to the embarrassing questions portion of the program. Ready?”

He sighs. “I guess.”

“Excellent. Yes or no – isn’t Prince Sherlock a catch?” It startles a laugh out of him, and she gushes, “I _know_. Did you ever luck out, John, heavens.”

“He’s strange, different from anyone I’ve ever met.” John shakes his head. “The alphas I’ve known were always so boastful, arrogant. Sherlock isn’t like that, not like you think. He can’t get along with anyone but me, and he’s cranky bordering on curmudgeonly, you should hear him sometimes, it’s really embarrassing. He’s brilliant, too, really, unbelievably brilliant, and he thinks everyone is an idiot – which, to him, they are.” He realizes, too late, that he’s gushing a bit too. He backtracks quickly. “I mean, I don’t know him very well yet, but I think I will soon. He tries, very hard.”

“He’s shared with me that he’s worried about your health,” Serra says. “And I’ve got to tell you, from here I can see why.”

John knows he isn’t quite so robust in the shoulders as he was when he was home, and his body has started going soft, but he didn’t realize it was that bad. “No good?”

“No good,” Serra agrees. “Anything hurt?”

“No,” John says automatically, though of course there is, and he sighs. “My stomach. I haven’t felt well for a while now. I’ve been getting some nausea at night, some burn-pain in my throat. But it’s _fine_ ,” he says when Serra’s eyebrow arches. “The food here is disgusting, that’s all.”

Serra does him the honor of not writing it down and John feels even more comfortable, at ease. The physicians here had to have several encyclopedia’s dedicated to him already. “How about your chest?”

“It alright.”

“I’m sure,” Serra says, feeling along his glands under his jaw. “Swelling here?”

“A little,” John says, and she works her way down.

She checks his chest, his heart, his lungs, then down to his belly. She sets her ear to it the old fashioned way, listening for several minutes. Whatever she hears reassures her, and this time she does write it down, some form of shorthand he can’t read. “You can be honest with me, you know that right? Whatever happens here won’t leave this room without your express permission.”

“You learned the art of foreboding at physician school, didn’t you?”

“Top marks in my class,” Serra says, smiling. “Seriously, John.”

He sighs. “Yes. Yes, I know that.”

“Good.” Serra catches his eye. “Are you and Prince Sherlock having sex?”

It sounds so vulgar, raw. _Sex_ , not a duty, not sacred, but animalistic, earthy, and truer than anything these people have been trying to call it. “Yes,” John says, rubbing his neck.

“Can you tell me about it?” Serra asks. “I know it’s mortifying, but give me some details.”

“Details? You want me to tell you…how?”

“Sure. Are you receptive? Is he gentle, forceful, a mixture of the two?”

Vulgar and raw, indeed. “Are these questions really necessary?” John asks, flushed to the roots of his hair.

“Well John, the truth of the matter is I’ve brought twenty eight omegas in the plain clans to term,” Serra says matter-of-factly. “Including several repeat offenders. So I know a thing or two, okay? Trust me.”

God help him, she means it. All the blushing is, at least, making him warm. “Sherlock is… he’s always gentle. It hurt at first, but he takes care to prepare me.”

The response apparently alarms her. “Does it hurt when he’s inside of you?”

“The first few times it did, but now…” He shakes his head. “He’s always gentle.”

“Almost too gentle.”

“Yes.” He considers telling her, decides not to, but then his mouth is working without his telling it too. “Except when I’m in heat.”

“How many times?”

“Twice, though I suppose the first time doesn’t count.”

She arches a brow. “You know I’m going to ask you to explain that.”

John presses the heel of his hand to his eye, sighs. “They drugged me, the first time. Alright? I got married, met him, and then the physicians drugged us both.”

She’s alarmed, he can tell, and trying badly not to show it. “How many days were you in heat?”

“Four, I think.”

“You think?”

He swallows, and swallows. “We were mindless for some of it. Whatever they gave us sent him into rut.”

Her frown sharpens. They both knew an alpha only went into rut once a year, and it was beyond the pale that they’d done it to him outside of spring. “Any lasting effects on his part?”

“I don’t think so. He was a little uncertain for a while, wary, but I –” John swallows. “I tried to help him. It isn’t his fault, they shoved him into this marriage just like they shoved me.”

“That’s a very healthy way of thinking about it,” Serra tells him, and catches his hand. “And you? Any lasting effects?”

John shakes his head. “The most recent lasted barely two days before it was over. I just went into heat last week.”

Her face is like glass, professional, and John knows he just set off a warning bell in her head. “Is that okay?” he asks. “Am I alright?”

“I’m sure you are, John.” She squeezes his fingers. “Tell me about the end bit now.”

“The end bit?”

“When Prince Sherlock ties with you. Is it always inside?”

“Well yeah. Sacred duty.” John’s certain he’s about to catch on fire. “He always makes sure.”

“To be inside of your body?”

John nods shortly.

“Do you wash immediately after?”

“No,” John says, and leans back into his pillows to stare up at the ceiling. “The physicians have to come and check the mornings after, so I just – I stay. Like that.”

“Does a lot of his seed come out of you?”

“Seriously?”

“Physician,” she reminds him, arches a brow right back. “Answer my mortifying question.”

John presses a hand to his face. “Yes. Most of it, I think. I try to-- uh.” He coughs.

“Well, that’s romantic. Nothing like sticky bits,” Serra says, writing it down. It surprises a laugh out of him. “I think I might know what’s going on. Regardless, you’re not going to have to be sticky afterwards anymore. I’ll make sure that doesn’t happen again, alright?”

“How?”

“I’ve got my ways.” She sets the notebook aside, pulls out the instruments from her bag. “Alright, the embarrassing question portion is over, now we’re going to get to the embarrassing examination part.”

He hates this part, _hates_ it, and something of it must show on his face because Serra takes his hand again, squeezing tightly. “I know it’s awful and uncomfortable, but experience, remember? And I know what I’m doing, unlike the physicians here. Okay? In and out, as it were. I promise to be gentle.”

He presses his other hand over his eyes until he can get hold of himself. “Fuck.”

“That’s about it, yeah,” Serra says, and makes him laugh shakily. “Come on, up you get.”

It means getting out of his warm nest, but Serra is insistent. John climbs up to his feet, pulling one of the blankets with him, and with quick, calm hands she checks his glands again, the touch clinical and impersonal even over the sensitive omega glands on each side of his neck. She takes blood and asks for a sample of his urine, which John produces, humiliated, after a trip to his washroom.

And then it’s time for what John’s dreading most, her internal examination. “It’s alright, John,” she murmurs, because he’s already trembling as he unties his trousers, flinching away from her touch even as he struggles to be calm. “I know this is awful, and it seems as if everyone in the whole damned Realm has been touching you here. But I’m going to be quick, alright? I already know what I’m looking for.”

He lies down and, arm over his eyes, spreads his legs.

She’s quick, just like she promised, and gentle besides. Her hands are smaller, and it hurts less, but it doesn’t change the fact that he feels violated to the core. She palpitates his belly as she works, and just when John doesn’t think he can stand one more second of it she pulls her fingers free, covers him up with the blanket. “See?” she says, and washes her hands in the basin at her knee. “All done.”

He swallows, hard, but when he speaks his voice is still gruff. “You said you knew what you were looking for.”

“I did,” she answers, and gently pulls his arm away from his face to look at her. “John, you’re already pregnant.”

John’s been imagining this moment for months now, but somehow it still seems unreal, impossible. He expected fear, anger, not… not this feeling that suffuses him, makes his head feel light and his lips go numb. “What?”

“It’s why you’ve been so cold, why your stomach has been upset,” she replies. “About three months, I’d say, which means you conceived on your wedding night.”

He sits up, slowly, heart fluttering somewhere in the vicinity of his mouth. “What?”

“You’re pregnant,” she tells him gently.

“No, I’m not,” John says, slowly shaking his head. “There’s no possible -- I can’t be.”

“You are,” she says. “The uterine flap has closed, and you’re returning to the semi-normal function of early pregnancy. You should stop feeling so swollen inside in the next few weeks, which should ease the stomach pain. It’s going to require a bit more lubrication on Prince Sherlock’s part if you both want to continue having sex.”

John stares at her, numb. “But… but I went into heat last week.”

“It wasn’t heat, John,” she says fondly. “True excitement, when your hormones are in flux and you crave sex from your mate, mimics heat quite beautifully. They’re called false heats, and they occur often during pregnancy.”

“But the physicians—”

“Had no idea what they were looking for. You have to remember that these people have no experience with this. You’re the first omega to be married into this House in this way for five hundred years.” She ducks her head, catches his eye under his fringe. “Another few weeks and they’d have known.”

This is real, John thinks suddenly, head swimming. He’d noticed the changes in his body, but he’d waved them away as just another part of this new, sedentary lifestyle. It dawns on him, with an ugly finality, that this is happening, he’s with – he’s going to –

He’s up before he even knows what’s happening, and only just makes it to the washroom. He vomits for what feels like ages, gags and wretches until his eyes are burning and Serra’s voice is in his ear, trying to calm him down. He vomits until stars light up behind his eyelids and his head feels woozy and it’s a good thing she’s there, actually, because without her he’d be on the floor.

She’s got hold of him, Serra, and he’s shaking to pieces before he can stop himself, like he hasn’t since he was a child. Heaven knew he had wept with pain – he’s been in war, he has his battle scars – but this is not pain of body, this feeling that pours over him, horror and a fear like he’s never known, because he’s gone, the John he thought he once knew, the John who had once been so proud. 

Serra gathers him up and helps him back to his bed, covers him up warmly, and strokes his hair back from his face. “Oh, John,” she murmurs, eyes wet. “It’s going to be alright, I swear it to you. I’ll be with you every step of this journey. At the end of it there’ll be something wonderful, the prize for enduring all this misery. It’s just the painful, awkward bits that have to come first.”

He shakes his head, turns his face away. Heaven help him. “Swear to me, here and now, on the fealty of our people and our Lord that you won’t tell a soul about this.”

“John.”

“You will tell _no one_ that I’m with child.”

“You mean to hide it?” She sighs. “That’s a pretty stupid thing to do.”

“I don’t care.”

“How exactly do you expect to do so?” she asks. “You’re not thinking this through. The changes in your body are going to come quickly, after the sixteen week mark. The seam has already begun to develop, and you can expect it to be obvious and visible in less than three weeks. Your body will re-proportion itself – you’ll get softer where it counts, and the changing levels in your body will make you appear what you are. The glow of pregnancy isn’t a myth, John.”

“It’s winter,” John says sharply, closing his eyes. “I’ll wear lots of layers. I’ll cover myself however I need to.”

“And Prince Sherlock?” she asks, an incredulous note in her voice. “You’re not exactly being fair to him, you know. Smart as he is, it’s going to take about ten seconds of him performing his sacred duty to know what’s happened.”

“I’ll deal with that when it comes,” John says. “Please, Serra. I just… I need some time.”

“Time is the one thing you don’t have a lot of,” she replies gently. “I can’t lie, love. If Lord Memnoc asks me, I can’t lie to him.”

“I thought you said—”

“I won’t lie,” Serra says again. “I’ll tell him what I always tell family – to discuss it with you. And he’ll come here and demand the truth, and you’ll tell him because that’s the sort of man he is. And afterward, you’ll hate yourself for not telling Prince Sherlock first.”

The truth hurts, stings his eyes. “If he asks, you – you do what you must. But please, I just need time.”

She sighs softly. “Alright. Heavens, alright.”

“Thank you.” John breathes in. “I need some sleep now, please.”

“Of course.” She stands, pulls his blankets warmer around him. “Lord Memnoc put me in a suite just down the hall from you, should you need anything.”

John nods, opens his eyes to look up at her. That she should be sleeping so close is a little alarming, not for her sake, but because if she’s here then – “Where is Prince James staying?”

“In another wing with the rest of his squirrely family, thank heaven,” she mutters, frowning. “Lord Memnoc is his mother’s cousin. He’d come for a visit to your family’s palace to see how your sister is getting on, like a proper weasel, and when Lord Memnoc’s request for physicians came he jumped on the caravan nearly uninvited. Practically raised by wolves, that one.”

John laughs, watery and shaky, and she smiles at him, sits again at his side. “I’ll stay until you’re asleep.”

“Thank you,” John says, and means it.


	5. Chapter 5

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John washes and dresses with the most peculiar numbness. The tutors come, as they always do, and afterward John can’t remember a single thing they’ve said.

Now that he knows he's pregnant, it seems ridiculous to have ever thought he wasn't. 

He blames it on his own nerves, the same way he would discount a wound on a battlefield as less serious than it was. When he wakes up from his nap he spends an hour in the bathroom staring at his reflection. He should have known before Serra put her hands on him. 

He remembers being very young, six or seven perhaps, and his mother's cousin, Fendon, coming from the southern province for a visit. The weather had been particularly gruesome that year, and John could remember his cousin sat in the shade, fanned by one of the servants, and being in awe of how positively _rotund_ he was. No one had explained to him that his cousin had been with child, not until after the fact when the wriggling, squalling thing had been born and spent three straight weeks bawling her tiny eyes out.

He presses a hand against his stomach, at the barest hint of roundness, but which would grow and swell and stretch just like Fendon’s had, obscene, ugly, until he was reduced to a defenseless, waddling thing. The omega seam between his legs would open, split, bleed for days, and months from now would dilate to allow for the birth of a child, Sherlock's child, a prince of the Seven Moons. Afterwards Sherlock would get him with child again and again, as many times as was expected of him, and John would have no choice, because he was to bear the generation to come after them.

He isn't in control, and it's stupid to have ever thought he was. He no longer has a say with his body, or his own life, and he hates himself, and his own stupidity, and in a way his sister for being so useless, so bloody _defenseless_ , so completely incapable of protecting herself that he'd had to do it for her and give up everything in the process.

John washes and dresses with the most peculiar numbness. The tutors come, as they always do, and afterward John can’t remember a single thing they’ve said. 

Sherlock comes to his rescue, and even that is met with an abnormal lack of feeling. He follows his mate out of the room like a mongrel dog after its master, leashed by the child growing in his body. He shudders, and Sherlock looks back at him. “You’re quiet this morning.”

“I thought you said I talk too much.”

“When I’m working,” Sherlock replies, implying with a glance that John is a damn chatterbox. It’s incredibly obnoxious. He crosses his hands behind his back, making the buttons down his shirt pull unattractively. “I trust you slept well.”

“Yes, thank you,” John answers in return. Of all the people who’d made his life a living hell Sherlock was least to blame, and a part of him wants to open up to him. It’s impossible, completely impossible, but the fact remains that he is _crushingly_ lonely. He thinks Sherlock would understand if they were in different places, in a different time.

But they’re not, they’re here, thrown into this ridiculous situation, and John has never wanted to confide in someone _less_. Sherlock, faultless though he is, is just another part of the prison John is living in. “And you?”

“As to be expected,” Sherlock replies, which meant he hadn’t slept at all. “Did your appointment with your physician go well?”

“As to be expected,” John parrots. As if any appointment with the physicians went well. “Where are we going?”

“Oh.” Surprisingly, the tips of Sherlock’s ears go bright pink. “I had hoped to go for a walk, but my father has informed me that you’re--”

“Not allowed to leave the castle, yes.” He glances up at Sherlock. “Is that a surprise?”

“My father is treating my mate like an errant child, of course it’s a surprise.” Sherlock looks back down at him, catching his eye. “I have been informed that I must stay vigilant in my duty.”

 _Fuck me. Your father is telling you to fuck me_. Heaven help him, it’s hilarious – John bites his lower lip to control himself, afraid of the hysteria that will follow the laughter if he gives in to it. “Right-o.”

Some note of amusement must bleed through because Sherlock’s mouth quirks, and the tense line of his shoulders relaxes somewhat. “The entire affair is completely ridiculous.”

“Of course it is,” John says, as they turn the corner to a quiet, secluded hall.

The outer wall looks out onto the waterfall, mist curled up into heavy clouds. Sherlock stops them at the innermost corner, and they’re so close to the falls John thinks he can almost feel the mist on his cheeks, even if that is, of course, impossible. He’d overheard one of the serving girls talk about the winter frost that came every year, turning the falls to ice. It doesn’t seem possible with so much power behind the water, roaring down to the cliffs below.

From beside him, Sherlock murmurs, “I find myself in a peculiar situation, one I must admit I’ve never encountered before. I find that I… that I wish to make you content.”

The words surprise him, but he tries not to show it. “Difficult to be content at the moment, Sherlock.”

“Perhaps when you’re—”

“Don’t,” John says sharply.

“I only mean that—”

“I know what you were going to say,” John snaps, glares up at his mate. So close to him, and yet still somehow a world away. “You’d be better served to keep your mouth shut in matters that don’t concern you.”

It’s like a storm crossing Sherlock’s face, and John is reminded of that morning when Sherlock had dragged him from the great hall, eyes like thunder. “Of course this concerns me.”

“The only thing you have to worry after is getting me with child, and then you can go back to your own little world until your father demands another.”

“What?” Sherlock asks, bewildered, but John’s just warming up. He shoves a finger in Sherlock’s face. “Once your sacred duty is over you won’t have to pretend anymore.”

“You will be quiet,” Sherlock says, angry but also confused, as if he isn’t sure what’s going on – that makes two of them. John has no idea what or why, only that he wants to hurt, claw and punch and kick and kill, and he can’t take up a sword, can’t even go outside to feel the mist on his fucking face.

Sherlock catches his fist when he swings, and John takes advantage of his shock to throw his other fist. Just like that they’re grappling, and John is fighting but Sherlock is not, doing his best _not_ to fight actually, and John doesn’t care _he doesn’t care_ , it hurts so much and he’s screaming, unintelligible, until all he can hear is the roaring of the falls and all he can feel is the freezing cold stone under his back and Sherlock, Sherlock on top of him, pinning him.

He can’t breathe, he can’t breathe and they’re staring at each other like strangers, and then they’re not, Sherlock is _kissing_ him, eating him alive, struggling to unlace and untangle their trousers. John turns over, hands and knees, and stares down at his fingers, white against the icy stone. Sherlock flips up his cloak over his back and John lets his head hang low, staring down between his own legs at his hard cock, and his belly which he can already picture hanging heavy.

Sherlock doesn’t see, or notice – the developing seam is _right there_ , but he’s far too interested in John’s hole, murmuring something that fills John with unnatural slick before pressing his fingers in, one-two-three quick. The feeling is awful and glorious and when Sherlock gets into place behind him, sinks into him, John goes half-mad with how good it feels. It hurts, stretched to his limit, but then Sherlock is pulling him upright against his chest, seating him easier, and it’s perfect. Sherlock is murmuring to him and John doesn’t understand why until Sherlock brushes his palm across John’s wet cheek.

John shakes his head, renewed anger and desperation and fear, always, always fear. They move together, John’s nakedness covered only by his cloak, and he hears a surprised cry from down the hall but Sherlock catches his mouth before he can turn to look.

A part of John knows Sherlock is just taking body rights, but another part of him, a louder part, knows that this is beyond body rights, beyond an arranged marriage. Things have been different since the day in the laboratory, and this is happening here and now because it feels good, because he’s suffering and Sherlock is – he’s trying to help, in the only way he knows how. Sherlock clamps an arm around his chest, pounds into him with three hard thrusts, and swells with a low, deep groan.

When Sherlock drops a hand down between John’s legs and fists him half a dozen times, John comes with a terrible stab of pleasure somewhere deep.

The hall is quiet. The water roars over the rocks, and Sherlock pants behind him, and John doesn’t cry, but only just.

 

.

Something changes, after that.

Sherlock isn’t – he isn’t _doting_ , none of that nonsense, but John notices it immediately a few days later, when Sherlock comes to fetch him from the clutches of his tutors. He doesn’t hold the door for him to pass through, doesn’t wait for him, just strides off, expecting John to catch up. It’s at once insulting and wonderfully refreshing.

“Are you listening?” Sherlock asks, as they enter his laboratory. He immediately crosses the room to his cloak, hanging from a hook.

“What? Yes,” John says, turns in a circle, then— “No, sorry.”

“If you’re going to serve as my assistant, John, then you should act like one,” Sherlock replies crisply. “The countertop. There’s a brown satchel.”

It’s the first John’s heard of any of this ‘assistant’ business, though he supposes the shoe fits right enough. The satchel is right where he says it is, under three books and what looks like a miniature birdcage. “What the hell are you up to?”

“Case,” Sherlock replies, straightening the lapel of the cloak. It fits rather nicely in fact, very nice indeed. His curls fall over the collar in a sweep that should be feminine and yet really, really isn’t. He ties the hair back with a leather thong, exposing the jutting angles and sharp lines of his features. “We’re going down into the granary. Are you going to be warm enough?”

John glances down at his own robe, the heavy knit sweater and trousers underneath, the heavy boots. “You tell me.”

Sherlock looks him over with the eyes of a stranger, not like he’s seen John naked, gasping, mewling and hard. “It will do.” He does, however, wind his scarf around John’s neck as they leave, and does him the favor of taking the books, leaving John with the satchel – which must have the entire contents of his laboratory stuffed inside – and the odd little cage. “Come along, John!” he shouts, when John is deemed too slow for his taste.

They make their way down the winding labyrinth of the castle, down staircases, across halls, up steps and then across a strange little covered area right outside of the castle. There isn’t magic here, and the cold slaps him across the face, makes him gasp so hard he ends up coughing. Sherlock waits for him, impatient, at another door, and when John reaches him he turns back round without another word, leading them back into the castle.

John is, he realizes, hopelessly lost, but that isn’t really a surprise, considering. He’s quick to keep on Sherlock’s feet.

This area of the castle is very, very old, John recognizes. It smells of wet stone and mildew, and the hallways are narrower, lower, more claustrophobic. They turn a corner and head down a flight of twisting, winding steps, and the meager sunlight from the small port windows slowly fades until, for a moment, they’re in the dark.

They turn the last curve of the staircase and John hears voices, sees lamplight down the hall. “What exactly are we doing down here?” he asks.

“I already told you, a case,” Sherlock replies. “Warm enough?”  
“You think you’re good at this ‘changing the subject’ business, Sherlock, so I hate to break the truth to you,” John tells him. It makes Sherlock snort. “What are we doing down here?”

“Another body.”

John stops in the middle of the hall. Sherlock turns back, haloed in the flickering torchlight. “What? Did you just--”

“My uncle tells me it was discovered an hour ago. Heaven knows what sort of damage they’ve already done to the evidence – are you coming or not?”

It kick-starts John’s feet, and he’s quicker now, hurrying after Sherlock’s longer legs. “Who?”

“Not sure yet,” Sherlock says, and he’s lying, John knows he is.

The reach the end of the hall, take another turn, and there they all are, a dozen knights at least, and just beyond John can see Sir Lestrade. Before they can reach him, they’re stopped by a woman John vaguely recognizes, in chainmail and with a hefty sword half her size at her hip. “What are you doing here?” she demands, as if she isn’t speaking to her lord and prince.

“My uncle summoned me,” Sherlock answers, a sneer curling his mouth into something ugly and just a bit thrilling. John stares at him, feeling as if they’ve never met. “Something about a murder?”

She hisses at him, glances about – some of the other knights in hearing distance shift uncomfortably. “Oi, that’s enough, it was an accident.”

“I’ll be the judge of that.” Sherlock glares, haughty, indifferent. “May I pass?”

The woman turns her gaze on John, malicious and angry and something a bit hurt in her. “This isn’t a bloody date spot.”

“I’d ask that you speak to your prince with respect, but we all know that’s out of your ability,” Sherlock answers, and glares. “May I pass?”

She glares at them for a few more seconds, just long enough that Sherlock tenses with anger, before sweeping an arm out behind her. “Be my guest.”

John’s been around dead bodies before, of course he has, rules of the trade when it came to being a knight. He’s killed men before, seen men killed, has almost been killed himself, but there’s nothing that can prepare someone for a dead body.

It’s a woman – a maid, judging by her dress, her hat. She’s lying sprawled on her front in an avalanche of spilled beans, not a trace of blood on her but for the parts congealed in thick, ugly bruises around her neck. Attacked from behind – likely never even saw who was choking her.

Sir Lestrade is crouched beside the body, writing in a small notebook, and when they enter he looks up. “Messy business, this.”

“Delightful,” Sherlock replies, and hands John the books, which he almost drops what with the sudden weight. “I thought we’d have another mind-numbing winter, but with a serial murderer on the loose we might actually see some entertainment.”

John is stunned, completely _stunned_ , but no one seems particularly surprised at their prince saying such a thing – it doesn’t even garner a glance up from the other knights in the room. “Are you kidding me?” John blurts before he can stop himself.

“Talking,” Sherlock tells him without looking at him, crouching down beside the body. “A name yet?” He directs the question at his uncle.

“Gladlyn, kitchen staff. No one noticed she was missing until this morning, when she didn’t show up for her shift.”

“Hmm,” Sherlock replies, lifting the woman’s hair lightly to look at her face. “Found by one of the kitchen staff.”

“One of the porters.”

“Send for him immediately.”

“We’ve questioned him alre—”

“Send for him,” Sherlock says again.

He continues his investigation, without any sort of set pattern, just as he’d done with Sir Eveningwood. John can’t follow his train of thought, not then and not now, though evidently Sherlock finds something of use because he calls him over.

“Now wait a minute,” Sir Lestrade says, glancing up at John. “It’s nothing against you, your highness.”

“John is my assistant,” Sherlock tells him without looking up, studying the crooks of the woman’s elbows.

“Assistant? You’ve got an assistant now?”

“Of course,” Sherlock replies, eyebrow arched and finally deigning to give his uncle one of those haughty looks of his. “Problem?”

“John is your mate, Sherlock.”

“He is. He’s also an accomplished sword smith, an excellent bowman, and a talented knight. That he is an omega is of very little consequence – _I_ am mated to _him_ , and it would do the palace a lot of good to remember that. Now please let him near so I can finish.”

Sherlock says it without a beat, as if he hasn’t rocked the foundation of the precipice John is standing on. For a second things get very dangerous indeed, and John swallows, and swallows, and when Sir Lestrade lets him crouch down beside him, he has to clear his throat before he can speak. “What, ah. What do you need?”

“A jar, in the satchel,” Sherlock says absently, carefully uncurling the woman’s clenched fist. There are beans embedded in her flesh, as if she’d gripped them as she died, and caught between her fingers are several long, dark hairs. With infinite care Sherlock murmurs a word and pulls them out of her grip with magic, floating them gently into the jar John quickly opens, then seals again once more. He does it again, and again, small fibers from her clothes, from under her nails, from the ground around them.

Finally, after what feels like a small eternity, Sherlock looks at his uncle. “She was meeting someone here, a lover. She’s rouged her cheeks and lips – a kitchen maid, after a long days work, she wouldn’t fix herself up for anything less. A tryst, this deep in the castle – it isn’t another servant, she wouldn’t go to all this trouble for a mere servant. A nobleman then. This isn’t the first time they’ve met here, she kept her back turned, coy, a game. He came up to her from behind, strangled her. But this one, she was smart, really very smart. She knew she was being murdered, she knew I’d be involved in the case, so she left us clues to get to him.”

Sherlock stands and John does too, carefully closing the satchel strapped to his chest. “Hair, skin. She scratched him somewhere, hands likely. You’re looking for a noblemen, twenty to about forty, dark brown hair, with scratches on his hands, perhaps his face.”

“Yeah well, you’ve just named half the castle,” Sir Lestrade replies, standing with a creek of joints. “A girl like this, so many nobles bedded down here for the winter. It could be anyone, out for a lark. You said it yourself, Sherlock, it’s bloody boring here during the winter months.”

“I’m not certain,” Sherlock replies, offhand, distracted. “I’ll know more soon.”

He leads John out of the room, past the knights and the sneering woman and back into the cold draft of the hall. John glances up at him, this person he’s only seen glimpses of, but which he likes a hell of a lot more than the other. Sherlock’s mouth curves and he says, without looking at him, “Content now?”

“Completely,” John replies before he can help himself. He holds up the little cage. "What the bloody hell have I been doing carting this thing around for?"

"Oh, right," Sherlock says. "You see John, I've got this underground network of informants, so to speak..."

 

.

The formal dinner is canceled that evening, out of respect for Gladlyn and the other kitchen staff. John can’t help but be glad, regardless of the awful circumstances, because a night where he didn’t have to see Sherlock’s terrifying father and obnoxious brother is in and of itself a celebration.

Sherlock spends the evening ensconced in the laboratory. He doesn’t treat John like a piece of furniture, which is a nice change of pace. He has John up and about, fetching ingredients, and beakers, and books (though that’s probably because they like him better, and haven’t forgiven Sherlock for terrorizing them a few weeks ago). It’s… nice, and John feels calmer with his hands busy. It keeps him from thinking about himself, what’s happened to him, what’s happening to him even now. It makes him feel more like Sherlock’s equal.

“Tell me again?” he asks, slipping a sliver of cheese between the bars of the small cage. A barn mouse takes it from him greedily, tiny whiskers flickering as he eats it with sharp, precise little bites. “What’s the mouse for?”

“Information,” Sherlock replies, as if it should be completely obvious.

John rolls his eyes. “You must think you’re cute when you act coy, Sherlock.”

“I never act.” Sherlock hums, adds another pinch of something that smells to high holy hell to his table-top cauldron. “Alright, let that steep for eight and a half minutes.”

“Eight and a half minutes,” John says. “Right.”

Sherlock glances at him, closes the book in front of him and opens another, which resists him before flicking open with a cranky snap. “What did you think of the porter?”

He feeds the mouse another piece of cheese, a bit of apple. “Normal enough bloke, seemed kind, a family man,” John replies. “I don’t think he had anything to do with it.”

“And you’d be right.” Sherlock leans back, thoughtful. “Does it strike you as odd that our culprit was clever enough to kill her in the granary, and yet left so much evidence behind? Surely he’d know I’d be on the case, and my skills are second to no man.”

“Arrogance, on his behalf – that he won’t get caught. And if what you said is true, and he’s a nobleman, he’s hardly going to get punished for killing a simple kitchen maid, now is he?”

“That was fairly bleak, even for you.”

“Honest,” John corrects. “The first year of my knighthood, one of the squires got into a fistfight with a knight, one of my mother’s cousins. I’ll never forget it, Endwir punched the boy in full armor, crushed his nose and drove the bones into his brain, killing him instantly. Not only did he go unpunished, but he made the case to my father that his honor had been tarnished, and my father took the compensation from his young family in repayment.”

“That must have been appalling to witness.”

“It was, but that’s not my point,” John replies, but before he can explain it better there is a rare knock at the laboratory door.

Sherlock shares a look at him, mirrored surprise on his face. “Come.”

One of the serving girls enters, bows low. “Your Lordship, the Lord of the Seven Moons and Lord James to see you.”

“Show them in,” Sherlock replies immediately.

The bottom of John’s stomach falls out, and he grips the counter-top so hard his fingers ache. Sherlock is too busy standing to notice, and he’s grateful, pitifully so, because the Lord is entering with a sweep of a cloak, Prince James at his heels, and it takes everything in John not to launch himself over the counter and throttle the man until he bleeds.

“Cousin James, Father. A surprise,” Sherlock says, and the three men give one another a brief bow.

“Sherlock,” the Lord says. His cloak is dusted with snow – he smells like the outdoors, of pine needles and fresh air. “Jounhin,” he adds with some surprise, when he catches sight of him behind the counter. John comes round it and gives the Lord a proper bow. “I didn’t expect to see you here.”

“Nor did I,” James says, raking his eyes over John’s body like he’s bloody undressing him. “No offence on you or your house, Cousin,” he says to Sherlock, “but isn’t it a bit late for your omega to be up?” 

John lives by the code but if there was ever a human being he’d like to kill in cold blood, it’s James. It’s because of him that John is where he is today, in this _fucking_ situation, and it’s clear he’ll drive the knife in whenever and however he chooses, the Prince of the Horse Lords brought to his knees.

“You’re quite correct,” the Lord says, frowning. It makes something sink in John’s stomach. 

“I apologize, my Lord,” John says, with what he hopes is proper deference and not homicidal rage. “I was assisting Sherlock with the evidence he gathered this morning.”

“Your findings?” the Lord asks of Sherlock, coming around the counter.

They begin to talk in some sort of shorthand, and Sherlock leads his father across the room to the larger cauldron in the back. John is in no way surprised that James makes his move, coming around behind John’s back so close his hips brush against John’s arse. That John doesn’t actually kill him where he stands speaks to the wealth of patience he’s acquired since coming to live here. “My lord,” James says, louder, “I really must retire, I’m dreadfully sleepy. Shall I escort Jounhin to his quarters?”

Sherlock twitches, full body, but the Lord of the Seven Moons says, “Yes, please do. Jounhin, the Priestess and her ladies will be with you by week’s end to begin preparing for the winter ritual.”

“Winter ritual, my lord?” John asks. Sherlock’s watching, and for the first time in ages John can’t read the expression on his face.

“I’ll explain it to him, in words my cousin will understand,” James offers, and John settles his hand on the hilt of his dagger.

As soon as they’ve left the room, James grabs hold of him by the arm and squeezes, so hard that John’s eyes water. He pulls John down the hall and through the magical barrier, and as soon as they’re through John wrenches out of his grip and swings, dagger clenched in his fist. James ducks, with only a glancing blow across his cheek that splits and bleeds immediately, and twists John’s arm up between his shoulder blades, making the joint pop and his dagger clatter to the ground. He chokes on a cry and James grabs hold of his throat, crushing his windpipe until only a thread of air can get through. He tries to shout, raspy and weak, and squirms, fighting as hard as he can to get loose.

James says, thick, in his ear, “You thought you could play this game with me, but you’re wrong. You’re nothing but a mongrel bitch, and you’re going to pay for taking her from me.”

Spots dance in his eyes as the battle for air gets harder and harder. His lungs burn and his heart pounds hard and panic settles in, makes him jerk, makes him writhe.

Just before the dark spots overtake him completely he’s on the floor, retching and coughing, and James is walking away, boots loud on the marble tiles.


	6. Chapter 6

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A week later, John’s body begins what he can only define as a strategic revolt.

John doesn’t tell Sherlock.

It’s stupid, the sort of stupid he’s never tolerated in others, the sort of stupid that invited tragedy – but James knows his craft well. John opens his mouth to tell Sherlock at least a dozen times the day after, but the words are caught, right there along the tender ache of his throat. Something makes John keep his collar carefully turned up, makes him claim a slight cold. He doesn’t want to name it, because it’s far too close to fear for his pride to withstand.

James is a bloody bully, and he knows his craft well. His eyes follow John constantly. It’s almost reptilian, that gaze, like a darting snake, and John expects a forked tongue to flick between narrow lips. John isn’t the suspicious sort, but even he can see revenge in those eyes, like an omen, a premonition – a promise. 

If he feels watched during the day, it doesn’t hold a candle to the grip James has on him at night. His dreams are awful, sick things, intense and terrifying. He dreams he’s on the battlefield again at Maiwand, only he isn’t the young, brash knight anymore – his armor is too tight because he’s pregnant, he’s so pregnant he can barely walk, heavy and swollen with child. Blood is pouring down his legs, but it isn’t his legs at all but James’ face, red sheeting down his cheek as John tries again and again to land a killing blow. James laughs and wraps his hands around John’s neck and the baby is being born, he hears it crying from under his clothes and James is killing him, and he tries to call for Sherlock but his mate can’t hear him, no one will ever hear him again.

He dreams it over, and over, and over, until he comes to recognize the grip of it, the sweaty, sour terror of it, and begins to actively avoid sleeping, even when it darkens his eyes, even when it pulls at his mouth. 

Sherlock, in what is either a stroke of luck or the worst possible timing, hasn’t come to him in near a week. The murder of the kitchen maid, the second murder in as many months, has rocked the palace, the very foundation of Lord Memnoc’s reign. The knights no longer practice in the courtyard below John’s window; they are on constant patrol, and have even joined forces with the lower town’s constabulary. Every time John sees them, he wants to shout – and every time John sees them, something stops him.

“John?”

He glances up, startled, at Lady Hudson. Her lips are pursed into a firm line, but he isn’t cowed, not even with Lady Turner, he’s certain, half a week away from taking him over her knee. He tries for a smile, but he knows he’s failed by the way Lady Hudson’s expression puckers.

It’s just the two of them on his balcony. Lady Turner is fetching a mid-morning brew of tea certain to, in her words, “Stimulate your forces”, whatever the hell that meant. John adjusts the blanket over his shoulder, momentarily amused by the half-dozen retorts that come to mind, somehow all in Sherlock’s voice. He’d would, John thinks, be pleased. John doesn’t give them voice though because, unlike Sherlock, he recognizes Lady Hudson as simply a part of an unnecessary whole –she’s kind, and like all teachers she shares her knowledge for no personal gain. John resents his situation, but he’s learned not to resent the people playing a part in it, and most certainly not this old woman who wore bird feathers in her hair. “Lady Hudson? Are you chilled?”

“Oh no dear, I’m perfectly fine. It’s you who should keep warm,” Lady Hudson says, coming to sit on the settee beside him. There’s a merry little fire in a standing chimney before them, and she stokes it carefully. “Being under the weather and all. How’s your throat, dear? Did you drink the tea I sent up last night?”

It had tasted of cat piss. Very likely, knowing the old bat as he now did, it was. “I did,” he says, and she pats his blanket-covered knee. “Sherlock will be here soon,” he adds, lame and awkward. Yesterday Sherlock had appeared, grunted a hello without so much as looking up from his tablet, and waved a hand as if bringing John to heal, like he was some sort of mongrel dog. It had been utterly humiliating, worse because John had followed anyway, desperate for something to do. For the first time John had grown frightened of how readily he had simply accepted, how different – how _damaged_ – he had become since arriving in this place. A year ago if someone, _any_ one, had done what Sherlock had done, John would have had them on their knees begging for the continued use of their arm.

“You don’t seem like yourself,” Lady Hudson says, and she really is sweet, regardless of all the home-making she’s been ramming down his throat. She takes his hand and he squeezes, like she’s a lifeline, like he’s sinking under the waves. Very suddenly he’s grateful for her and Lady Turner, battle-axe that she is, because the man he thought he was is long gone, lost under this new person, someone he doesn’t recognize when he looks in the mirror. Someone unable to blame, let alone kill, the man who had hurt him.

Lady Hudson tuts, gathering him in close, stroking his hair and making shushing noises. She says something but he doesn’t hear it, not for a long time, until his chest stops feeling so tight and his eyes stop burning. He lays his head on Lady Hudson’s lap, cramped and cold and uncomfortable, but Lady Hudson is stroking his hair and the fire from the chimney warms his cheeks, so it isn’t all that bad, really.

He says, voice rough, “I’m sorry.”

“Whatever for?” Lady Hudson replies, gently stroking his fringe back. “We all need a bit of a cuddle now and again. It isn’t healthy to store everything inside.”

He would have argued, not so long ago, but he can’t anymore. He isn’t the man he once was, strong and virile and unafraid, capable of keeping himself safe. He’s been reduced to something he doesn’t recognize and can’t control.

After a little while he closes his eyes, listening to the wind whipping through the mountains and across the palace walls. “Does it hurt?”

“Hmm?”

“Having a child. Will it hurt?”

“Mmm.” Lady Hudson has a smile in her voice. “I have a daughter, did you know that?”

John opens his eyes, turns his head a little to look up at her. “Really?”

“Melli. She was married some years ago, to a baron from the Realm of the Wolf. He’s a kind man, they’ve given me four grandchildren.” Lady Hudson pats his hand, amuses him by propping her tiny feet up on the table before them. “When she was with her first she asked me the very same thing, so I’ll tell you what I told her. Childbirth is the sort of pain that’s necessary to life. The most peculiar thing is that afterwards you don’t really remember the pain, and you certainly don’t mind it, and a part of you will know you can do it again.”

John stares at her. “I think that’s the most genuine thing you’ve said since you began tutoring me, Lady Hudson.”

She squeezes his hand. 

They’re quiet, for a bit. The merry little fire feels good, warm on his face, and he closes his eyes, listening to the air as it brushes through the trees, to the voices of the people all around him going on with their lives, carefree. And as such, he’s very near to falling asleep when Lady Hudson asks, “Did Sherlock give you those bruises, dear?”

It’s a jolt, as if he’s just touched a livewire, gone just as quickly and leaving behind an ugly, dark feeling. “No,” John replies, rough. “Though I can see how you’d think so. That was the point, after all.”

Lady Hudson pauses in her stroking, gnarled fingers resting on his head, but after a few seconds she resumes, gentle and firm. “Would you like to tell me who it was?”

His eyes feel gritty, full of sand, painful. He could tell her, he knows, but its burden enough for him, let alone an old woman. He tries for a smile, and when it doesn’t go over very well lets it slide off his face as quickly as it came. “Please, Lady Hudson. It wasn’t – you have nothing to worry about. It wasn’t Sherlock, I swear it to you on my mother’s life. It’s something I have to take care of myself. Please, promise me that you won’t tell Sherlock about it.”

“You are Prince Sherlock’s mate,” Lady Hudson argues, though he can already tell she’s caved. “He’ll kill whoever did it with his bare hands.”

“Lady Hudson,” John says again, kissing her hand. “They were just trying to scare me. I swear, I’m taking care of it. Alright?”

Lady Hudson never replies because Lady Turner returns with a tray full of tea, but he can feel her eyes following him for the rest of the morning.

 

.

It isn’t Sherlock who comes to fetch him – or, at least, it isn’t _only_ Sherlock. He looks rather irritated and put off when he barges in with nary a knock, but John thinks he might be able to forgive him, considering his brother is at his heels.

The ladies make themselves scarce, and John watches as the brothers bid them goodbye – Mycroft with a short, respectful bow, Sherlock with a kiss to each lady’s hand, each so simple, each so telling. “Everything alright?” John asks, wary.

“Good morning, John. Everything is fine,” Mycroft says, in John’s opinion a bit ridiculously, because Sherlock begins to pace the length of the balcony like there’s something chasing after him, long legs eating up all the available space and making him seem twice as big as life.

Mycroft takes a seat in one of the vacated chairs, so John sits back down too, pulling the blanket closer again. “Has there been a break in the case?”

“Unfortunately no,” Sherlock says on his third pass. His hands are in fists at the small of his back, the breeze catching his hair. He looks like something out of a romance – it’s all about the cheekbones. “I concluded my analysis of the fibers and hairs we discovered on the body this morning, and it matches nothing we have in our records. Considering that the only foreigner in the palace at the time of the murder was _you_ , and you were otherwise occupied, that means there’s a traitor in our midst.”

John ignores Sherlock’s insinuation – that he was occupied because he was on his back – and meets Mycroft’s startled gaze head-on, refusing to blush. His spouse stalks on, ignorant to how his words were just taken, and Mycroft rolls his eyes and pinches the bridge of his nose.

John doesn’t laugh, but only just. 

“Sherlock, surely your people marry into other clans and families – and you trade, I’ve seen the caravans come up the mountain from the window in your laboratory.”

Sherlock makes a low, frustrated noise, as if he’s run out of patience with John’s ignorance, but before John can do more than glare Mycroft cuts in. “You know that the palace is carefully guarded by my family’s magic.”

“Yes, but what does that have to do with anything?”

“It’s no use, Mycroft,” Sherlock begins, but his brother cuts him off with a steady look that somehow, miraculously, shuts Sherlock up for longer than three seconds. “My father knows every single man, woman and child who enters through the lower town gate,” Mycroft tells John. His tone is just a touch above insulting, but John doesn’t take it personally. “That is said literally. Each and every visitor to this realm is required to submit to a blooding, to which their name, lineage, and rank is forever linked.”

“Magic,” Sherlock interrupts on one of his passes, as if that clarifies things in the slightest.

Mycroft gives him an overly patient look before once more turning his attention to John. “Magic,” he confirms. “Archaic magic, from the Second Era, possibly earlier. When a visitor enters the Realm, their presence is automatically noted, recorded, and stored in the very walls of the palace. In return they are afforded all the protection of the Realm of the Seven Moons, for however long the duration of their stay.”

John frowns. “That doesn’t stop someone from coming in, though, blooding or not.”

“Of course it does, don’t be stupid,” Sherlock says, pacing. “The magic in the palace and lower town becomes progressively more toxic – within a day there’s fever, sweats, rash, and eventually boils, bleeding from ones various orifices, and death.”

“Charming.”

“Yet effective.” Sherlock throws himself into one of the chairs, nearly upending it. He’s far too royal to go sprawling backwards, gracefully righting himself at the last possible moment. “And as no one is stumbling about bleeding out of the holes in their face – traitor.”

John studies his mate. “It must be very frustrating for you, always having to explain.”

“Yes, well, be that as it may,” Mycroft says, as Sherlock looks at him like a stunned bird, “winter is far too close to allow a diplomatic party to travel into the neighboring provinces. Father is beside himself with anger. He’s sent messengers out, but it may take weeks for them to return if the great snow comes.”

John takes that in. “Is there nothing we can do?”

“At the moment, no,” Mycroft says, watching him closely. “The attacks were almost exactly a month apart – we fear that, sometime in the next week, he or she may strike again. With Sherlock’s evidence – or lack thereof – Father has decided to lock the lower town gate against all visitors.”

“But that doesn’t make any sense,” John argues. “They’re not getting in through the town gate.”

Both brothers freeze. Sherlock slowly sits up. “What did you say?”

“If there’s a traitor like you think,” John says, uncomfortable. “Obvious, isn’t it? They aren’t getting in through the walls, you said yourself that the knights didn’t find a breach. And they aren’t coming in through the most fortified entrance – the lower town gate. That means they’re getting in through the weakest point of entry – either the service gate down by the training grounds, or the supply gate at the back of the palace, where food is delivered to the kitchens. If I were looking for a traitor, that’s where I’d start.”

Mycroft darts a look at Sherlock, unreadable, and Sherlock’s face cycles through a dozen emotions before settling on a strange mix of contempt and pride. “Well?” he demands of his brother, whirling up to his feet. 

“Father won’t be pleased,” Mycroft announces.

“I’m certain you don’t need me to tell you what I think about that,” Sherlock says, smug. “Come along, John.”

“What?” John asks, climbing to his feet quickly. “I can’t leave the castle.”

“You _couldn’t_ leave the castle, that’s done now that I have need of you,” Sherlock says, and how he manages to make it sound so filthy without even trying makes heat flood John’s face. Mycroft hasn’t looked away from Sherlock, expression like a raincloud. “Go get your warmest clothes on, we’re going down to have a little chat with the guard.”

John looks between the brothers, mulling over the fact that he’s become a pawn in their little game. “Lord Memnoc said quite specifically that I can’t leave the castle. Won’t he beat me with a wet fish or something?”

“While quaint, that isn’t far off the mark, metaphorically speaking,” Mycroft tells John without looking away from his brother. “This is why you can’t have nice things.”

“John isn’t a toy I’m dragging about in the dirt,” Sherlock snaps.

“Isn’t he?” Mycroft asks. He stands, flicking his jacket firmly into place. “Watch your step, brother mine. I won’t be there to catch you this time.”

They watch Mycroft leave, and John levels a look up at his mate. “Want to tell me what that was about?”

“No,” Sherlock says, almost as if brushing the entire discussion aside. “Warm enough?”

“Not nearly,” John says. “Let me rephrase. What was that about? What did your brother mean, catching you in time?”

“Nothing you need concern yourself over,” Sherlock replies, frowning sharply at him. “Now is not the time to become discerning, John – I need an assistant, but you talk too much as it is. Now are you going to get dressed and are we going to go down to investigate, or not?”

“Charming is right,” John mutters, and goes to get his things.

 

.

They don’t find anything out at the gates.

John had been so certain – but that’s just how it went sometimes. The guards were trusted men, vouched for by Sir Lestrade himself, once he’d caught wind of what was going on and came to tell Sherlock off. Sherlock stomps around in the muck a bit, collecting what he insists is evidence, and John, without anything better to do, follows after, doing his best to keep warm.

The sun is only beginning to crest down and over the sky, headed into the western horizon, when John says, “How did you know?”

“Hmm?” Sherlock asks, distracted, peering inside of a roadside bush. 

“You weren’t surprised. You’d worked out that whoever is going about murdering these people was coming in through either this gate or the southern one, probably the second you realized that the evidence you’d collected didn’t belong to anyone in the palace. So… why the show?”

“I was surprised,” Sherlock says, a note of amusement in his voice. “I thought I’d have to make the case to my brother much more ardently, but you solved that nicely.”

“Case?”

“That keeping you tethered to the palace was a mistake, when it’s obvious that you have more than the average brain sitting on your shoulders.” Sherlock glances up. “That is, unless you enjoyed staying inside? You do have the hands for knitting.”

“Hah hah,” John says, and Sherlock smirks, half crawling under the bush. “Anything?”

“Possibly,” he mutters, crawling back out. He’s got a ridiculous twig stuck in his ridiculous hair, and John reaches out, plucks it free. Sherlock stares at him, a beat, two, then whirls on his heel and digs under a second bush. “If you knew that I already knew, why not say something? It would have won you points with my brother.”

John shrugs. “Wanted to try being a show-off. You always seem to enjoy it.”

Genuine mirth colors Sherlock’s face. “You’re frequently obnoxious.”

He snorts. “That’s rich coming from you.”

“I’m far from obnoxious,” Sherlock says, crawling half under a third bush. It shows off the shape of his backside rather nicely, and if John weren’t so cold he would have appreciated the sight a hell of a lot more. 

“What are you looking for, anyway?” 

“The girl’s apron.”

“Her apron?”

“What?” Sherlock looks back out from under the bush to glare. “Of course, don’t be stupid.”

John rolls his eyes, crouches down beside Sherlock. Something funny pulls in his belly when he does, and he shifts until he’s more comfortable, until the almost-pain stops. “Explain,” he demands.

Sherlock rolls his eyes, ducks down again. “The girl, John, the girl. Don’t you see?”

“I wouldn’t be asking if I did.”

“Picture her as she was when she was found.”

Sprawled, twisted unnaturally, neck clearly broken. “Okay.”

“See her,” Sherlock says, muffled. “Can you really, truly see her?”

“Wouldn’t say I did if I didn’t,” John says.

“And yet.” Sherlock straightens up again into a half crouch, holding a small bottle full of earth, damp from the rain. “Her shoes – nonspecific style, manufactured by the cobbler’s apprentice from the lower town -- were caked with mud on the soles. Specifically, caked with mud from the orchards, but there was also a fair amount of pollen I couldn’t identify.” He held up his sample. “Do you know what this is?”

“Wet, rainy muck from under a bush?”

“Precisely.” Sherlock climbs to his feet, brushing mud and dirt from the knees of his trousers, and after a moment offers John a hand up as well. “Our kitchen maid was not as innocent as we were led to believe by the circumstances of her death. At first I considered the possibility that she was blackmailed, as Sir Eveningwood so clearly was.” He shakes the bottle. “This proves it unlikely.”

“Why do you say that?” John asks, as they begin walking back towards the gate.

“Can’t you see it?” Sherlock demands, and then sighs explosively. “Of course you don’t, intellect aside you’re hardly the most luminous of people.”

John glares up at him. “If this is you, flirting, let me be the first to tell you that you’re doing it wrong.”

“Do I really have to spell it out?”

He’s nearly bouncing on his heels with delight. John caves shamelessly. “Alright then, off you go.”

“Kitchen maids aren’t sent to the orchards, so why the orchards, what’s in the orchards? Precisely nothing, aside from two sets of footprints – two going towards the orchard, one coming back. One set was a woman’s small shoe, matching the size and width of the maid’s, the other a man’s boot, thick-soled, brand new and unbroken – there were clearly missteps, where he’d paused to adjust his foot within the boot. He needs tighter laces.” Sherlock pauses for breath. “Judging by the debris caked on the trim of the maid’s petticoat I surmised that she did _not_ go to the cherry orchard, because the red tint to the hem of her dress only occurs in the soil under pomegranate trees. The pomegranates are planted the furthest from the palace and closest to the river. More footsteps at the nearest bank, evidence of a boat being pulled to the shore. Smart, brilliant even, no one checks out this far, never had a reason to.”

Sherlock digs into his cloak, and holds out a scrap of cloth to John. “I found this snagged in one of the thistle bushes that grows along the bank of the river.”

It’s a thick piece of wool, dark and fine, and he’s certain he’s seen it before, though he can’t identify it. “You got all that from the hem of her petticoat?” John asks.

“And more,” Sherlock replies, cheerful bordering on manic – a virtuoso with an audience. “She hand-washed the hem of her dress, trace evidence of detergent in the folds of cotton, but didn’t bother with the petticoat, assuming it would be hidden beneath the dress. The shoes didn’t matter either, she wiped them on the walk by the kitchen doors.”

“Let me guess. You found where she’d done it.”

“Clearly.”

“Why the river?” John asks, staring back out towards the orchards just beyond the gate. They seem to go on for miles. “What’s so special about that river?”

“Absolutely nothing. It’s a vein of a larger river system that was dammed several hundred years ago to prevent spring flooding, which would damage the orchard. It wraps down around the mountain and empties into a small lake.”

John arches a brow, but Sherlock says, “It’s a two day trip to get to the lake and back. My father won’t send anyone out that far this close to the first snow.”

They come back through the gate, and John tucks his gloved hands into his cloak pockets. It’s delivery hour. The old man who drove the cheese cart is tucking his money for his wares in the pocket of his jacket. Just beyond there’s a queue of carts -- the baker, a blacksmith, a man with three goats. John watches, curious, as the head butler marks the pay from his ledger. 

“—and she wasn’t wearing her apron,” Sherlock is saying, when John tunes back in. “Odd, that a kitchen maid should have been without an apron.”

John had been wondering what all that ‘apron’ talk was about earlier. “Maybe she took it off after her shift?”

“Grease splatter and food particles on the front of her dress. She didn’t have it on for the entire workday,” Sherlock replies, leading them across the bridge back to the palace proper. “A sensible girl like her, she would have never forgotten her apron, not with the price of dress cloth as high as it is this time of year. That means that she met with her associate very early in the morning, before breakfast was to begin. She forgot her apron in the orchard and didn’t have time to return to fetch it. Realizing her error, and not wanting to catch trouble from Cook, she washed the hem of her dress in the sink.”

“And why she didn’t bother with her petticoat or shoes,” John says, finally understanding. “But hang on a minute, that doesn’t make sense – who was she helping?”

“The man who would kill her that same night,” Sherlock replies instantly. “A trusted friend and confidant, most certainly. He’s going to strike again, very likely before the week is through, because he knows he isn’t going to be caught.” John thinks he can almost detect a note of respect in his mate’s voice, but when he looks up Sherlock’s face is unreadable. “He’s taken care to wipe all evidence of his presence away – save for the hairs caught in the kitchen maid’s fingers, which I suspect were a plant to deviate attention from himself and send my brother on a wild goose chase.” He stops in the middle of the walkway, glancing up at the massive spires. “He’s here, right now, toying with us, for no other reason than because he can.”

The moment breaks and John unclenches his fingers, sucks in a deep breath. Sherlock offers him a smile that is in no way reassuring – he doesn’t _do_ reassuring, and the way his face is twisted up is unnatural. “Don’t do that, you’re scaring the children,” John says, and Sherlock rolls his eyes and drags him into the palace.

That night after dinner, a warm wash, and clean night clothes, John knocks on Sherlock’s suite door for the very first time. The surprise on Sherlock’s face is almost worth the price to John’s pride when he asks, “Can I come in?”

Sherlock stares at him, a beat, two, and then finally, “Yes, of course.”

They don’t have sex. Sherlock orders extra blankets and a bed stove, and hands over an extra pair of woolen socks when it becomes readily apparent one pair isn’t enough. By mutual agreement they climb under the covers together. Sherlock’s all elbows, and his pillows are entirely too soft, but when he curls in tentatively against his back John relaxes for the first time in what feels like ages. He shuffles backwards until they’re pressed together, comfortable in a way neither could be alone.

And when Sherlock touches his shoulder, John turns and accepts a kiss, and twines their fingers together against his chest.

It’s the first night in weeks that he sleeps and doesn’t dream. 

 

.

A week later, John’s body begins what he can only define as a strategic revolt.

If he were the type to be charmed by his own absurdity he would have thought it a bit funny, all things considered. There he’d been, thinking that the knowledge he was with child was the worst that could be thrown at him, without for one second realizing that there came with pregnancy a whole _other_ bag of apples. His body reminds him, violently and all in one go.

It starts with nausea, which hits him so suddenly that the touch of sickness he’d been experiencing at night can’t hold a candle to the all-out war suddenly being waged in his stomach. The nausea sends him stumbling from his bed every morning to rid his body of what turns out to be nothing more than water and bile, but which leaves him heaving until his throat burns, his mouth washed with acid and his stomach doing its level best to crawl out through his mouth. 

The nausea is almost immediately followed by a pounding headache which sets up shop right behind his eyes, turning the world ugly, muted colors that burst with red at every beat of his heart. The headache doesn’t last long, replaced by a dizziness so severe he’s half convinced that the palace is swaying under his feet. The dizziness has the added benefit of once again sending him stumbling to the bathroom again. 

This goes on, more or less continuously, for the better part of an hour each morning. It’s followed by near-starvation levels of hunger, in which he eats half his body weight in whatever is on hand, even though everything he puts in his mouth has a distinct metallic flavor. He loses his taste for venison, can’t stand juice, and the very sight of milk makes him gag. Serra tuts at him, but all John has to do is look at her hopefully and she caves, bringing him some of the sweets she’d brought from home. John’s never tasted anything so good.

John has always trusted his body, treated it as a weapon to be wielded. The sudden shift into pregnancy makes him feel like alien in his own skin. He doesn’t recognize his arms, gone soft with disuse, or the... the _padding_ around his middle, the way he no longer looks like himself in all the places that count. He is no longer the man his knights once called _ritari nopea hevonen_ , swift horse, but a man caught in the confines of a body he no longer knows and doesn’t trust.

There is something nudging, ugly, at his mind, tickling all those places not overwhelmed by the fact that his bloody body is playing bloody host to a bloody baby. Something to do with all of this business – the dead maid, and the poor knight, and all the evidence Sherlock’s gathered that, despite his brilliance, he can’t piece together – but more because James has taken to stalking him, _watching_ him. John’s well aware that the man is doing his level best to scare him, but a deeper, far more suspicious part begins to wonder if maybe it’s more than that – if maybe James is learning his routine, waiting for the right moment to strike.

John’s never been one to ignore that feeling, especially not now when he finds himself in the peculiar position of being, if not helpless, than certainly less capable of fighting an onslaught of armed heathens than he once was. He’d feel better if he was armed better – the ceremonial dagger at his hip wouldn’t do much of anything in the face of true danger. 

“I want a sword,” John says.

“Mmm,” Sherlock replies. “Hold that steady.”

John props his other arm on the table, steadying himself over the caldron. It’s empty, at least physically, or so Sherlock had said. John tries not to move the circle of magic too much, even though it makes his fingers tingle where he’s holding it. “Don’t ignore me, you know I hate it when you ignore me.”

“I’m not ignoring you,” Sherlock says, _ignoring him_ to write in his ledger. “This is nothing like I’ve ever seen.”

“What?” John peers down into the circle, sees nothing, exactly like he has for the past hour. “You still haven’t told me what I’m doing.”

“Being my assistant,” Sherlock says, like the true snot he can be. He adjusts the circle minutely with a touch of a fingertip, squints. “Or isn’t that what you wanted?”

John bites back his first five thoughts then another three for good measure. He breathes in steadily through his nose. “Don’t be a prig.”

“Don’t pout,” Sherlock retorts, and brushes his fingers through the circle, letting it dissipate into nothing. “You’re not getting a sword.”

“Maybe I was being too polite,” John says as Sherlock gets up, ledger in hand, and crosses the lab to the bookcase. “I will have a sword, regardless of how you feel about it.”

“My father would never hear of it,” Sherlock says, glancing back at him. His hair is caught in a leather thong again, tight at the nape of his neck, but his hair is so curly that it keeps trying to escape. He studies John intently, eagle-eyed sharp. “Why do you want one?”

“Because there’s a murderer about,” John replies sensibly.

“I won’t insult you by asking what it is you mean to _do_ with a sword, then,” Sherlock tells him, pulling a book from the shelf. He has to tug, once, twice, before it lets loose. “Oh come off it,” he snaps, and the book in his hand flutters with a cranky crinkle. He sets it, with far too much force, on the countertop. “You said you’d talk to them.”

“I did,” John says, and runs a fingertip down the spine of the book. It croons, a distinct groan of its binding. “Don’t change the subject.”

Sherlock looks at him penetratingly, makes John feel cleaved right open, as if he could never hope to have a secret. “Has someone threatened you?”

John takes too long to answer. Only, he’s so surprised by the question that by the time he’s capable of dragging enough of his brains together to reply, Sherlock is around the lab table and in his space, gripping his wrists. “Has someone threatened you?” he demands again, low and _mean_ like John’s never heard. Like the alpha he is.

“No,” John murmurs – trying for reassurance – and obviously failing by the look in his mate’s eyes. He goes soft and wet with sudden, powerful _satisfaction_ , instinctual and base, because this is his alpha, this is the man who would kill for him, for their children. He’s never felt anything like this before, but now that he has it’s as if something he was waiting for – something that was missing – has slotted into place. 

He shifts, and Sherlock’s eyes are dark with fury, so he gently, gently turns his wrists in Sherlock’s grip, tangles their fingers together. “I’d just feel safer knowing that, if push came to shove, I could protect us.”

Sherlock’s grip on his hands lessens, then falls away. He looks far from convinced, but John’s already too close as it is. The shame in his own inability to protect himself only makes his resoluteness to do so that much stronger. “I’ve never asked you for anything, Sherlock, in these months I’ve known you.” 

“You’ve asked me for a great many things, shouted them, bashed me over the head with them,” Sherlock replies, haughty again, bordering on indifferent. John would almost believe it, if not for the slight upturn at the corner of his mouth. “A sword, John, really? Of all the barbaric nonsense.”

John doesn’t know _what_ Sherlock says to his father, but two days later, just as he’s begun to get antsy again, Sherlock shows up to fetch him from the tutors with a beautiful short-sword. It’s clearly ceremonial, but when John draws it from its sheath the metal sings. Sherlock eyes him. “To your liking?”

“Have to try it out first,” John says, though he knows better than to brandish it, not with two scandalized old ladies staring at him. He looks up at Sherlock, warm all over. “Thank you,” he says.

“You’re welcome,” Sherlock replies, with amusement and pride and something else, something neither of them will name.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone for all of your warm comments and encouragement! I don't ever have enough time to reply to everyone, but thank you, thank you, thank you to all of you who are invested in the story! I'm so glad you're enjoying it. :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The northern realm is very, very different.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please see the end of this chapter for trigger warnings.

The northern realm is very, very different.

Of course John already knew that, had _known_ that since he began his schooling. Of the ten realms, four came from the plains, as John did. Two were from the south, fishermen, branches of John’s own family line which had broken off thousands of years ago. They retained the coloring of their plain ancestors, though they were often lighter of hair, darker of skin. There was the western realm, the largest of all, yet badly fractured by family in-fighting and civil war. The two eastern realms were the commercial heart of the Ten Realms, and goods from the Outside were brought in by the tradesmen of the east. They, too, had closer ties to the plain realms – John’s own mother was from the east. 

The realm of the north, however, was something altogether different. There was no common ancestor with the north; rather, the northerners had ties outside of the Realms, with the winter lands far north, with the peoples across the Green Sea. They were sorcerers, not to be entirely trusted, and left alone to their strange customs and rituals. John had grown up hearing stories of these eccentric people, of their height and odd coloring, of their different ways. He was old enough not to be frightened by it anymore, had even thought himself properly metropolitan not to be overly alarmed by anything his mate’s family did. Still, John had known, from the very moment his father had told him about his betrothal to a northern prince, that he would be subject to some kind of ritual or another. 

Honestly, he’s surprised it took them this long.

These northern people had a faith very different from what John had always known. They prayed to odd deities, and the virgin priestesses lived, sequestered, at the shrine, and with each passing of the season they held a ceremony in which a sacrifice was made. 

This time, apparently, the sacrifice was going to be _him._

“I’m sorry, say again?” 

Because certainly he didn’t hear correctly, only it’s obvious he _had_ because the priestesses standing before him are giving him a pitying look that sets his teeth on edge. “We are here to begin preparing you for the sacrifice, Prince Jounhin,” one of them says, a brunette with the biggest breasts he’s ever seen on a woman that petite. The priestesses clearly did not believe in undergarments.

“Oh no, you’re not,” John tells her and her breasts calmly. “I have rights, I’m not going to be bled like a stuck pig.”

“Bled?” The other priestess gasps, scandalized. “Is that typical of your people?”

The question sets his teeth on edge. “First born of every family. Afterwards, they roast and serve him at the grand feast.”

They both scream, high and blood curdling, and flee – he’s never made a woman flee in his life, but there they are, the two of them, running away like he’s just brandished his new sword at them. Everyone in the grand hall turns and stares at him, even Mycroft, who had only been passing through with two scrolls under his arm. John sighs, listening to the women scream all the way down the walk and across the bridge; he’s never heard such ridiculous histrionics in his life. “Sorry,” he says, holding up both hands. “Really everyone, I didn’t mean to do that.”

Mycroft doesn’t look pleased, but then again he never does. He approaches, eyebrow arched. “Dare I ask what that was about?”

“Sorry,” he says again. “I might have overreacted.”

“Overreacted?” Mycroft asks, voice rising at the end on a lilt. He beckons John to follow him. 

“Something about a ritual?” John asks. “Your father mentioned it – I just didn’t realize I was going to be the main attraction.”

“Ah.” Mycroft quiets, contemplative – never a good sign. “We don’t hold them very often. Father requested this one in hopes of appeasing the gods, so they might grant you – well.” Mycroft smiles at him. “No need to worry. There is a bloodletting, often three cows, of which the peasants in attendance are granted a portion. Afterward there is a small ceremony, you drink wine from the royal chalice, and it’s done.”

John feels his face heat. “Well, the priestesses should have just said that.”

Mycroft stops at the door to the map room, turns back with an amused snort. “Why explain with ten words when a thousand will do?”

Sherlock is waiting for him in the lab, where he’s been living for the past week. Or rather, perhaps ‘waiting’ is the wrong word – Sherlock is lying stretched out across the cot, fingertips steepled under his chin, with a look of extreme concentration on his face. At his side there’s some sort of pipe, and even with the windows it smells ghastly, like a port house of ill repute. “What do you know about this ritual business?” he demands. “And just what the hell are you smoking?”

“Belany and Isandra,” Sherlock says, without opening his eyes. “Liven weed.”

“What?”

“In answer to your questions – the ladies who ran shrieking down the hill are Belany and Isandra, and I must say I don’t think someone has offended their constitution in such a manner in some years.” Sherlock opens one eye. “And I am smoking liven weed.”

“How much of it have you smoked?” John asks, waving a hand and coughing. He crosses to the window and waves away the magic barrier, cold air rushing in. 

“Three pipes,” Sherlock says, monotone. “This is a three-pipe problem.”

“Yes, well, I’m surprised you’ve still got the lining of your throat intact,” John says, fanning some of the smoke out with the old blanket. “What are you doing, anyhow? The dinner bell is about to ring.”

“As it has every day for the past eon, as it will continue to do for a thousand years more,” Sherlock replies, dismissive.

“I’m sure you’re right,” John says, peering out the window. Down below the last of the service carts are rolling down the bridge, empty of their wares. Children are running and laughing, but the soldiers posted every fifteen feet had the older people tense, hurrying to do their business. John hates it, hates how _helpless_ they all are. “I wish there was—”

He stops, frozen. Sherlock has sat up on the cot, and on a chair before him, in a tidy little square, is a white apron. There’s a perfect monogrammed crest of the house of the Seven Moons on one edge, and underneath, written in the strange print of these people, _Kitchen._

“The apron,” he says, stunned. “That’s the maid’s apron.”

“Yes, obviously.” Sherlock studies it intently, but he isn’t thick, because not ten seconds later he sighs out loud. “I didn’t kill her, John.”

“I never said you did,” John says carefully.

“Why not? I’m the right height, the correct build, even the hairs found tangled in her fingertips are the right texture and color. I’ve been conducting the investigation, I could have thrown out the evidence – it’s a perfectly logical assumption.”

John tips his head. “Do people usually assume you did it?"

Sherlock gives him a smile better suited for a boy, full of mischief and amusement and not at all like they’re discussing a dead woman’s murderer. “Now and again,” he says. 

“Where the hell did you find it?” John asks, crossing the room to sit beside him. He tries not to make it obvious that it takes him a fraction of a moment to find his center of gravity as he does. “You thought it would be in the orchard, but you looked.”

“I looked but didn’t _see_ ,” Sherlock replies. He unfolds the apron carefully, as if it were made of the most fragile glass. “I assumed that the kitchen maid lost it in the orchard – what I didn’t think is that perhaps she herself was on the boat.”

“The boat? The one you thought was dragged on shore?” John asks. 

“The one I _know_ was dragged on shore,” Sherlock corrects. “The river is used for commercial purposes – moving supplies up and down stream – and to ferry people around the village. Anywhere from ten to twenty boats will pass through on any given day, but the orchard has never been a port of entry – the bank is far too shallow. I knew I wouldn’t find anything there, so I took a walk down along the bank.” He’s nearly vibrating with excitement. “She was in the boat with her killer. He wouldn’t have noticed that she’d left the apron for hours. I got it wrong, you see – I reanalyzed the particles on her dress, and I found no trace of the breakfast or luncheon that was served that day. Only drops of the gravy from dinner, the flour from the rolls, the heavy washing soap used at the end of each day to soak the pots. She went to the lower town to meet him, and came back on the killer’s boat.”

Sherlock stands, begins to pace the length of the room. “But our girl was clever. Whatever was happening between her and the killer, she knew she was in danger. She left her apron in the boat purposely. He would have been compelled to get rid of it the moment he noticed it, as any murderer would. Took me less than an hour to find it, tangled in a bramble downstream.”

John stares at him. “Of course.”

Sherlock grins, sweeps across the room for his cloak. “Hungry?”

“Starving,” John says, climbing to his feet too. “If the killer is a boatman, shouldn’t finding him be easy?”

“It would be, yes, if all the boatmen hadn’t been accounted for the night of the murder. This time of year, the sediment in the water oftentimes accumulates at the elbow of the river, creates small sandbars that are nearly impossible to see. Father closes off use of the river from fall until the spring thaw.”

Understanding dawns. “It wasn’t a boatman.”

“No,” Sherlock agrees, and tosses him one of his tatty blue scarves. It smells like alpha, and comfort.

“But if it wasn’t, then who?”

“The question of the hour,” Sherlock says cheerfully. “Dinner in town?”

That was new. “Really? Won’t your father--”

“Probably,” Sherlock says, and strides out the door. He ducks back in when John stands, frozen, by the cot. “Coming?”

They stop by his room to fetch his heavy leather cloak, the thick gloves, the woolen sweater. Even so armed it’s bitterly cold outside, and he stays close to Sherlock’s side out of sheer necessity. Sherlock doesn’t seem to mind – in fact, there’s color in his cheeks that tells John he rather likes it. John wonders if Sherlock even knows he’s got such tells, and vows never to tell him.

Despite the fact that the sun has gone down the lower town is still bustling. The shops are hopping and the market is full near to bursting, vendors selling roasted dechu nuts, ripe apples, juicy fonlos, and cakes of all sizes and flavors. 

“Where are we going?” John asks, and offers a small smile to two old ladies, who wave joyfully. 

“Umberland 12, about a five minute walk.”

“Why?”

“Because I guarantee that’s where our killer is going to be.”

A shiver rolls up from his toes, radiates out from his belly. “What? You think he’s going to – why? Surely he wouldn’t be so stupid.”

“Surely he would,” Sherlock answers with a snort. “That’s the way with the brilliant ones, John – always desperate to get caught.”

“But that doesn’t make sense.”

“You do realize that’s going to be your epitaph, yes?” Sherlock smirks when John glares up at him. “It makes perfect sense. He killed a knight of the realm, he killed one of our maids in our own granary. He’s gotten comfortable, sure of himself, cocky. We haven’t been able to get near him for over a month – he’s invincible, you see, certain he’s committed the perfect crime. That’s why we’re going to have dinner in a fine establishment, right in the center of his hunting ground.”

“His – Sherlock, stop, _stop_ ,” John snaps, coming round his spouse and holding a hand up to his chest. “Did you just imply what I think you did? He’s on the hunt again?”

“Of course,” Sherlock says, nudges his hand out of the way. John just pushes him back with the other. “Did you honestly think he’d be satiated after two murders, John? It’s very likely he’s already gotten his next victim chosen, it’s just a matter of time before he closes in for the kill.”

Sherlock doesn’t push his hand away again but wraps it in his own, tucks it into the crook of his elbow. Mycroft had done the same thing not so long ago, and it wears on John’s nerves now as it did then. The townspeople are watching, though, and it would be bad form to make them think they’re quarreling. John does glare, though – can’t help himself – and lets himself be led. “Why Umberland 12?”

“It’s the heart of the lower town. Sir Eveningwood had his last beer and supper here, and the kitchen maid lived in a small loft above a shop. And—”

They turn a corner and John stops, stunned, because the street is bisected by the river, of which dozens of shops and restaurants surround on either bank. There must be hundreds of people enjoying their evening. “Fuck.”

“Indeed,” Sherlock replies. “He’s here, I’m certain of it. Hunting in the middle of a crowd.”

“How is that possible?” John demands. 

“Haven’t the faintest. Fish or steak?”

Neither sound appetizing, but John doesn’t think he can handle the taste of fish. “Steak.”

They cross the busy road to what a sign declares as the port district. It smells of water, the sea, but also meats cooking, bread baking. Small tables sit outside busy restaurants, filled to brimming with people – John’s never seen anything like it, a far cry from the quiet peasant village below his family’s castle. These people clearly enjoy life – despite the cold wine is flowing, children are running and laughing in the street, and musicians play instruments like John’s never seen, but which have a sweet, melodic sound. They’re approached far more often as they walk down the bank, greetings, short conversations in which Sherlock introduces John. It’s rather lovely, actually, and had things been different, had John been born to a different life, he can see himself settling to run a shop just like this, or maybe his old dream of being a physician, birthing babies and treating the sick.

They duck into a small, rustic shop, with glorious glass windows that overlook the water. They’re immediately greeted by the owner, who claps Sherlock’s shoulders and kisses him soundly on each cheek. To John he gives the deepest of bows. “My lords,” the man says, bowing and scraping and somehow leading them to a reserved table, right at the window where they can look out on the river. “You honor my family by coming to my establishment. Anything on the menu is free of charge, for you and your wife.”

John jolts, embarrassed beyond comprehension, but Sherlock just smiles politely, shakes the man’s hand. “Thank you, Anjelin. Hungry, John?”

“I’m not his wife,” John corrects, though he might as well be speaking to the wall because the man continues, “You have a fine spouse, m’lord. Prince Sherlock is the finest gentlemen I’ve ever met, a prince of the people. He cleared my family’s name.”

Sherlock shakes his head at John’s arched brow. “I proved to my uncle three years ago that Anjelin wasn’t robbing wine from the royal cellar, as he’d been accused, and which is a crime punishable by death. He was on the west end of the village, turning a man’s face inside out.”

“Cleared my name!” 

“I cleared it a bit,” Sherlock answers. “Anything happening tonight?”

“Nothing,” Anjelin says. “If it weren’t for this man, I’d have gone to jail.”

“You did go to jail,” Sherlock says. 

“Six months,” Anjelin says, waving a hand. “Whatever you like, free, and some candles for your wife.”

“I’m not his – bloody hell,” John says to the man’s retreating back. He shoots a glare at Sherlock. “Is that what your people think?”

Sherlock has the grace to look a bit uncomfortable. “The realm hasn’t seen a marriage like this among the royals for over ten generations, John. It’s a bit unorthodox, and most of the village tends to be very traditional.”

“I’m not your wife,” John snaps.

“You aren’t,” Sherlock agrees quickly, but John has the feeling he’s just agreeing so John won’t tear him a new arsehole. 

They order -- or rather, John orders, Sherlock asks only for tea. John thinks he might be embarrassed, but he’s suddenly so hungry that he doesn’t really care. They pass the time chatting, John mostly, as Sherlock stares out the window at the hustle and bustle of the evening. 

Suddenly, Sherlock snaps, “It doesn’t make _sense_.”

John snorts. “Funny you should say that.”

His spouse glares at him. “Don’t be amusing. I’m perfectly serious. He has to be here, I’m certain of it.”

John frowns, sips his own tea. “If what you say is true, and whoever is killing these people is a proper genius, then it’s likely he doesn’t live in the area.”

“Of course not,” Sherlock says. “Wait, why not?”

“Because regardless of his sanity he’s got to have a home. Haven’t you ever heard that phrase, Sherlock? Don’t shit where you eat.”

“How pedestrian of you.”

“And yet,” John says sensibly, and drinks his tea. “It’s more likely he works around here somewhere.”

“He’s hunting without being seen,” Sherlock says slowly, staring out the window, but tense now, as if someone’s hit him with a shock. He stands, slowly, and John turns out to look, too, at the small merchant skip sitting docked right outside the restaurant. At the man climbing aboard, glancing back over his shoulder as he does.

Sherlock bolts.

“Sherlock!” John shouts. The entire restaurant freezes but John can’t help that, far too busy following his mate as he runs, pell-mell, through the crowd. 

He’s attracted the attention of the knights on guard. John hears them shout out, the roar of armor as they take off following them, but John’s far too busy trying to chase his ridiculous mate down. He runs, heart pounding so hard he can feel it in his ears. It feels good, stretching his legs, even as he bellows, “Sherlock you idiot!” and follows him down the bank.

The fisherman’s boat is near the center of the river, flowing with the current – there’s absolutely no way Sherlock will ever be able to catch it in time, and he nearly runs into him when Sherlock abruptly stops. Sherlock catches him, which is nice, then turns him round and shoves him down an alley, which isn’t. “Keep up,” he says into John’s ear, and then he’s off again, long legs pumping. John yells obscenities, and the knights are right behind them shouting out to him, but John can no more stop chasing Sherlock than he can respond.

Sherlock leads them through a twisting, turning maze, across peasant doorways, over a roof or two, up stairs and down inclines. John is helpless but to follow, even when a pain begins to build low in his stomach. He has no idea where Sherlock is leading them, catching sight of the river once in a bit, only that Sherlock collides into the corner of a building before running towards a bridge keeper, the two halves raised to allow for the merchant ships to pass. He shouts something at the bridge keeper, and by the time John’s bouncing off the corner of the building himself the bridge is being lowered and the merchant skip has been blocked.

Sherlock splashes right into the water, where the bank recedes down into the river, and grabs the merchant by the front of his cloak. “Tell me!” he’s shouting when John finally gets to them.

“I have no idea what you want!” the merchant is sobbing. “Please, my lord!”

The man is near to jibbering, and the knights are shouting at Sherlock, at one another, but that doesn’t matter very much because the pain is sharp between his legs. John can’t pinpoint it very well, only that his knees are turning into rubber and it’s only for the knight nearest him catching his elbow that John doesn’t end up on the ground. “It’s alright,” he says, though he has no idea who he’s trying to reassure. “I’m fine.”

“You’re not, sire,” the young man says, and he’s talking but it doesn’t matter too much because Sherlock is right there, filling up John’s entire world, and that’s nice, that’s wonderful in fact, because spots are dancing in front of John’s eyes and he’s got the sudden, clear notion that he’s going to faint. “I just need to sit down.”

“John,” Sherlock says, snapping his fingers in front of his face. “John!”

“Stop,” he mutters, lips numb, and pushes Sherlock’s hand out of his face. “I just need to sit down, you idiot.”

But Sherlock isn’t looking at him, he’s looking down – as are the knights, as is the damned bridge keeper -- at the blood darkening the fine deerskin trousers down the insides of John’s thighs.

He isn’t sure what happens after that, and later when he tries to think on it he’ll only remember the odd sensation of being lifted, of the way the evening sky had looked, stars scattered across darkening blue. He’ll remember Sherlock shouting, and the constant, comforting _clang_ of armor, and the way the world had rocked under them, water on his face. He’ll remember Lord Memnoc in his night clothes, Sherlock furious and panicked in turns, and Serra, murmuring in a low, comforting blur and doing something between his legs that made the black rise up and swallow him whole.

 

.

He dreams. 

He’s a little boy again, running in the meadow above the castle. Two of the new hunting dogs follow, and Heriathin shrieks with glee when one of the pups tries to nip her dress, jumping to catch the ribbon of her apron.

He’s twelve and trying to be a proper older brother, bloodying the nose of the boy who’s made Heriathin cry. Myron retaliates and gives John his first black eye.

He’s sixteen, kissing his first beta under a mariflower tree. He wraps his arms delicately around John’s neck and John realizes that he’s never felt more uncomfortable.

He’s seventeen and on the battlefield, so scared he’s glad of his armor, because the sheet of metal hides the heart about to pound out from his chest.

He’s a man, knees open around the body atop him, and he doesn’t have to see to know it’s his alpha. John can feel him, smell him, taste him, but when he looks up it isn’t Sherlock at all, it’s James, James inside him, _fucking_ him, and it hurts, it hurts so much and John can hear himself as he never has, begging for it to stop. He’s weak, powerless against James’s strength, against the fingers wrapped around his wrists, against the weight of his belly, swollen so high and heavy and hard.

He’s a man, crying like a child, but Sherlock is there, murmuring, _sleep_ , so he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: allusions to miscarriage (though John and the bb are going to be fine, not to worry), child endangerment, trauma. John doesn't think before he acts and puts himself and the baby at risk. If any of this is a trigger for you, please read with caution.
> 
> Thank you for all the wonderful comments and feedback you all have given me for Seven Moons! I'm so glad you all are enjoying it. I will try to have chapter 8 up sometime next week, so more to come soon. :)


	8. Chapter 8

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He comes awake violently, gasping; he will never be able to get another breath again. Strong hands grip him tight, Sherlock, _Sherlock_ in the lamplight, and he murmurs, “John,” and John thinks _alone, lost and alone._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you to everyone who has left such wonderful comments, I'm so glad you all are enjoying the story as much as I'm enjoying writing it!
> 
> As with the previous chapter, please see the end of this chapter for trigger warnings.

The nausea brings him awake so swiftly that he doesn’t know what’s happening until he’s vomiting.

Serra is right there, helping him onto one elbow and pressing a bowl under him. He’d be grateful to her if it wasn’t so awful, didn’t make fresh pain flare up. There’s a blur of words over him, different voices, but he can no more concentrate on them than he can on anything else, willing the nausea to recede.

Eventually, after what feels like a thousand years, it does. Serra helps him stretch back out and John is glad of it, exhausted. A hand catches his and John turns his head to look at Sherlock, eyes dark bruises in his face. Sherlock’s fingers clamp, vice-like, around his. His face is unreadable. 

“I’m sorry, John,” Serra says, and John’s world abruptly narrows to a single point because surely – surely –

“The child?”

“Fine,” Serra says immediately, and Sherlock’s fingers do their best to break the bones of his hand. “The child is fine, but I’m afraid your secret is out.”

The weight of it will crush him if he lets himself think on it. Sherlock might as well be a block of ice beside him. “What happened?”

“I was off by a few weeks. Fairly common when it comes to pregnancies like yours,” Serra tells him gently, wiping his brow with a cool cloth. 

“What does that mean?”

“The tissues of the seam become extremely fragile for a point in time. When you took off running, you tore yourself open.”

This isn’t happening. John doesn’t look at Sherlock, can’t bring himself to see the disappointment, the anger, the regret in those hard, cold eyes. “The baby is fine,” Serra continues, squeezing his shoulder. “I don’t know if the damage is too extensive yet, not until the swelling goes down.”

A jolt of panic hits him between the ribs, unexpected, ugly. He realizes that there seems to be an entire loom’s worth of cloth between his legs, bandaged tightly around his hips, up over his belly. There is muted pain, a familiar pull of stitches, and the most peculiar ache, new and strange. “Too extensive?”

“These things have a way of healing,” Serra tells him gently. “You’re a strong, healthy omega in the prime of your life. We just need to wait and see.”

“And if it is?” John asks, panic strangling him until he can barely talk. “If the damage is too much? What happens then?”

He knows the answer already, of course, sees it in Serra’s eyes. He doesn’t recognize the sound that comes out of him and Sherlock stirs, finally forcing John to look at him. 

How could he have thought Sherlock was angry? Sherlock looks _wild_ , face pulled in taut, horrible lines, a look John remembers seeing only once before, so vividly that he doesn’t know how he’d ever forgotten. His father had looked at him like that at the battle of Maiwand, when John’s armor had still been so new, the calluses of his dominant hand pale and thin. He’d gripped John by the vambrace with such strength he’d bruised John’s forearm, and John hadn’t understood then, young as he’d been, why his father had looked at him like that. He understands now, because Sherlock is staring at him like his father had, possessive and terrified, as if he can see John’s death laid out so clearly and there’s nothing, nothing he can do about it.

Sherlock says, strangled, “You are my mate. It changes nothing.”

“It changes _everything_ ,” John snaps, as near to hysterical as he’s ever been in his life. Sherlock grips his hand even tighter. “Your father will never allow you to stay mated to someone who can’t provide you an heir.”

“You’re pregnant now,” Sherlock says. John knows him well enough now to read the astonishment on his face, as if he can hardly believe he’s saying the words. “You’re pregnant now, and when she’s born she will be my heir, and that’s the end of it.”

“That’s not the way it—” He stops. “You saw the—you saw her.”

“Of course I saw her,” Sherlock retorts. Then, as if realizing, he says much more gently, “Of course I saw her, John. She is perfectly safe and perfectly sound, tiny yet, unformed, but with a healthy beating heart.”

John presses his hand to his eyes because he never – it just seems easier to bear, knowing the child growing inside of him would be a girl, a child he could teach to be strong and self sufficient, and not a wilting flower like his sister. Sherlock’s got a grip on his other hand and John squeezes back just as hard. “Sherlock.”

“One day I’ll be the Lord of the Seven Moons, and what I say is what will be,” his mate says, his deep voice so thick John can barely understand him. “My daughter will be just as mighty a force as any son.”

He doesn’t understand, not when John’s world is falling apart around him “Every girl born in my family for the past thousand years has been omega,” John croaks, furious at himself and this stupid thing he’s done. “You aren’t the lord of this realm yet, Sherlock. Your father sees me for what I am – a broodmare. If I can have no more children, when I bear your daughter – _if_ I can bear your daughter – your father will dissolve this marriage, she will become a royal bastard, and I’ll be sent back to my family.”

“That will never happen,” Sherlock says, painfully naïve like he can sometimes be.

“It can and it will,” John argues, beginning to panic. “Don’t be an idiot, your brother was deemed unworthy of succession because he has no magic. What makes you think he would give an omega girl a second thought?”

“My father is not unfeeling,” Sherlock replies sharply. “He would not – he would never –”

“Gentlemen,” Serra breaks in quietly.

John had almost forgotten she was there, and Sherlock certainly had. He’s gone white to the lips. “There is still a chance John will heal from this,” she says with infinite care. “As I said, you’re healthy, and the damage, while worse than I would like, is not as bad as it could have been. You may still be able to give birth normally, and if that’s the case then a second pregnancy, or a third, would not be out of the question. As it stands right now we simply don’t know.”

“And cutting him?” Sherlock asks. “If he’s unable to – certainly the child can be delivered by n operation.”

Serra pauses for a long, long moment, as if gathering her thoughts, before finally, gently, saying, “Perhaps, sire.”

“What does that mean?” Sherlock demands. “What does she mean?”

“I told you, our magic is different. The children don’t survive.” John is tired, so tired. He looks over at Serra. “How long must I heal before you know for certain?”

“A week or two,” she says. “You’re on bed rest until then, John.”

Sherlock doesn’t speak, and for a moment John thinks he’s going to keep arguing, but instead, Sherlock climbs atop the bed, careful, so careful not to jostle him too much. It still hurts, but when Sherlock settles next to him something in John settles too. He almost doesn’t notice Serra slipping away. “What does she look like?”

“Too early,” Sherlock says, quiet beside him. He folds his long limbs in like a gangly spider, all skinny joints and long fingers. “Why didn’t you tell me?”

John’s eyes are heavy. “Scared, I suppose. Lost.”

“Lost?”

He shifts just slightly, until the pull between his legs is too much, until Sherlock puts his hand on his stomach and John can relax again. It feels so good to have his alpha close, like he’s safe, like he’s been forgiven for this terrible lapse in judgment. It’s an illusion, but John can’t let himself think on that now. “I’m so tired.”

“You lost a fair bit of blood,” Sherlock says into his ear, breath tickling his neck. John’s nearly asleep again, but he will swear later that Sherlock ran his fingers through his hair, gently, so gently. “We can talk later. Go to sleep, now.”

“Will you stay?”

“There’s nowhere else I want to be.”

John lets his eyes close. “The case?”

“Irrelevant. Go to sleep, John.”

He does.

 

.

When he wakes up, morning sun is flooding his room. It filters in through the curtains, across the floor of his rooms. He’s warm, blessedly and wonderfully warm, but there’s also pain, and a strange ache that radiates out from between his legs. He takes stock of himself, and wonders at his own blind stupidity.

The Lord of the Seven Moons is sitting at his bedside.

“Good morning, Jounhin,” the man says, an odd note in his voice that John can’t place. He looks uncomfortable, and John struggles to remember that these people have never been presented with a male omega. When the Lord of the Roaring Sea had come from the western-most realm and found John’s uncle pregnant, he’d been so horrified he’d nearly fainted dead away at the sight of him. What was normal to John was absurd to others, and if there was one thing John hated more than anything else, it was being absurd. 

He struggles to lift himself up a bit – there’s only so much his pride could take, and lying flat on his back while the bloody lord of the realm sits staring at him is just a hair too much. Unfortunately, it also has the consequence of said lord standing to help him, carefully adjusting his pillows as if he played nursemaid all the time.

Once certain John is propped up as much as he ought to be, he retreats once more, sitting back in the chair. It isn’t one of John’s. “How do you feel?”

“Where’s Sherlock?”

“Bathing and changing into fresh clothing.” John realizes – of course. Sherlock had been covered in John’s blood. Fuck. “He tells me that your physician has spoken to you.”

John doesn’t want to look at him, but can’t look anywhere else. “Yes, my lord.”

Lord Memnoc sits back in his seat, steeples his fingers under his chin. His sons both bear such a strong resemblance to him, each in their own way. Right now John can see every inch of Sherlock in him, in the way he’s being studied like a particularly fascinating insect. It almost makes the not-quite-memory of the man in his night clothes, expression just short of terrified, recede. “He has also told me that you conceived on your wedding night.”

John could throttle his mate, only he knows that what Lord Memnoc wants to know, Lord Memnoc will know. “Apparently so, my lord.”

“How long have you known you were to bear my grandchild?”

_Fuck_. “A few weeks. Less.”

“And you felt that this information was not relevant to your current situation.”

“My situation?” 

Lord Memnoc doesn’t seem angry, only considering, thoughtful. “I gave you strict instructions, with the consequences of what was to come if they were not followed. Why did you keep this a secret?”

John swallows. “It’s personal.”

“Nothing about this is personal,” Lord Memnoc says, as if he’s being particularly thick. “You are no longer your own man.”

“It’s personal.” He grips the blanket, fists it between his fingers to keep his temper in check. “I wasn’t trying to get sent back home, if that’s what you’re asking.”

There’s suspicion lurking in the man’s gaze. “Perhaps you have a lover in your realm.”

“Are you questioning my chastity?” he asks. “Even if I’d been so inclined, my father went to great lengths to be certain of it. Your son put this child in my belly, and I’ll thank you not to question it.”

That sort of talk would be enough to land anyone, royalty or not, right in the cells. Instead, Lord Memnoc’s mouth quirks, too quick to be a smile, too obvious to be anything else. “I see.”

“Did I put your mind at ease?” John spits, really on a role now. “Would you like me to produce the blooded wedding sheets? I’m certain your army of useless physicians has it put away someplace, to parade out with the sole purpose of humiliating me.”

“That won’t be necessary,” Lord Memnoc replies lightly with a minute shifting of his posture. He taps his steepled fingers lightly against his chin. “You will be afforded every luxury, every request. You need only ask.”

“Thanks, I’m fine,” John says, staring up at the ceiling.

“The great snow is upon us. Now is the time to make your desires known.” 

John doesn’t answer, and there’s silence between them but for the rustle of the blankets, the muffled voices of servants passing in the hall. Lord Memnoc is as still and silent as a statue. There is no love in that gaze, but there is a quiet affection that is all the worse, because with the affection is disappointment. “My son tells me she is healthy.”

“Yes she is,” John tells the ceiling. He’s gripping the blankets so tightly that he’s sure he’s going to put a hole in them. “I won’t let anything happen to her.”

“You almost did,” Lord Memnoc replies sharply, with enough magic curled in the words to cut through John’s defenses, making him flinch, making him hurt. “You knew of the delicacy of your situation. What could have possibly gone through your mind to chase after my son?”

“I didn’t know what would happen.” Sherlock’s words echo in his ears, _He will have no compunction in taking any children we have away to be raised by a fit mother_ , and feels sick. “I couldn’t let Sherlock take off after a murderer, not alone.”

“You love him.”

He’s surprised at himself to know that Lord Memnoc’s words are true. It makes him feel as if he’s putting all the power in Lord Memnoc’s hands. Maybe he is, maybe it’s a mistake, but it’s done now. “I didn’t know this would happen, it was never my intention to hurt myself or the child. But I wasn’t going to leave Sherlock alone, not for a second.”

Sherlock chooses that exact moment to burst into the room, hair still damp, carrying an armful of books with another fifteen floating demurely behind him. There are servants too, each carrying something from the lab – the cauldron, a box full of jars, the soft, tatty blanket from the cot. John snorts, he can’t help it, because the first thing Sherlock says is, “Do _something_ about these books,” while getting whacked in the face with an errant cover. 

“Give them here,” John says, waving him close and inadvertently welcoming the whole procession in. In all the clamor of getting things into the room, servants and books and jars and more books -- it’s practically the entire _library_ – Lord Memnoc leaves, but not without first catching Sherlock’s eye. Whatever Sherlock sees makes him scowl.

Finally, after an eon, they’re alone. The books are all over his bed, fluttering and shivering like beloved pets waiting for a scratch. What appears to be the entirety of Sherlock’s lab is stacked up against the far wall. He tickles the binding of the book at his side, listens to it mewl. “You really should be nicer to them,” he says. “What’s all this?”

“The work,” Sherlock says. He closes the door with his hip, sets his satchel down with a clatter that echoes oddly. “I find that my brilliance comes quicker when in your presence.” It’s said not at all like admittance, but more as if he’s letting John be privileged enough to know. It’s obnoxious, and entirely amusing. “How are you feeling?”

“Alright,” John says. “Really would have liked a heads up on your turning my rooms into a laboratory.”

“No you wouldn’t have.” Sherlock pulls what looks like an entire countertop and set of cabinets out of the satchel with a wave of his fingers, the bloody showoff. His eyes go beautiful, dark gray and bright white, illuminated, and the lightest current of magic sparks between his fingertips, like electricity and somehow not at all. 

He puts the counter right at the foot of John’s bed without asking, entitled and haughty and John relaxes back into the pillows, grins when the books all flutter. “Did you forget your – of course you didn’t,” and John sighs, because out comes the stool, cushion and all.

“To work,” Sherlock says, imperious as ever. 

 

.

John heals, little by little.

Once the danger is over, the first days are washed out in muddy pain because Serra makes him get _up_ , makes him walk around the room. The seam, Serra tells him, won’t knit correctly if he doesn’t allow for natural movement. It terrifies him how weak his knees are, how fragile he feels. Instinctual, and with the ugliest embarrassment, he holds tightly to her elbow, and no matter how many times he tries to let go, he simply can’t. Sherlock works at his bench and pretends not to watch every step he takes. He’d be better at it if he didn’t flinch every time John makes a noise.

There’s a coldness that’s curled in his chest he can’t shake, a humiliation he can only feel the edges of but which threatens to dismantle him from within. It would be better if he could just deal with it, because then he could fight and shout and cry and that would be the end of it, and he wouldn’t be living in this perpetual limbo. Not even when Serra declares him well enough and removes his bandages does he react. His body is alien to him – he is not this person with a roundness in his belly, he is not this person split between his legs, fragile and uncomfortable and _open_ , but of course he is, of course this is what he has become. 

The snow arrives, as Lord Memnoc had predicted, blanketing the land in a thick sheet of white. John’s never seen snow outside of a book, doesn’t realize that with snow came a cold he could have never prepared for. It bites at him, fingertips and toes, crawls down his spine and gathers around his bones, making them ache. 

He receives two letters from his sister, and can’t make himself take out paper and quill; the letter from his father is thrown away unread. His mother, who he has not heard from in these many months, sends him a cutting of her favorite winter roses that grow wild all over the countryside. He watches it die in inches, until it is nothing more than a brown, curled thing.

One evening, Lord Memnoc comes to his rooms just as John is readying himself for bed. He is followed by what must be the entirety of his council, each with scribes hanging on their every word. The man pauses, as if only realizing how rude and presumptuous his sudden arrival is when presented with his law-son in a state of near undress. John carefully draws his dressing gown back around himself. “Jounhin,” Lord Memnoc says, over the scratching of quills. The council members stare at him, and John wonders what they see. “I come with a gift.”

A low murmur. Quills scratch-scratch-scratch. “Yes, sire.”

A man steps forward. He is clearly a servant, though a prized one – his cloak is thick wool, fine leather boots are at his feet. He is short-statured, with a wide face and big hands. “He is called Michael, and he is to be your body servant,” Lord Memnoc says.

John’s never been given a human being before. Most likely because it is the height of insanity. “Oh,” he says, and looks up into Michael’s face. If the man is as humiliated as John is, it doesn’t show. “I have servants, my lord.”

The council members all stare at him as if they can’t believe his cheek, the scribes scratch-scratch-scratch. Another stumble. “Michael employs his services to the royal family in time of illness,” Lord Memnoc says, face like stone. It’s the first time John’s heard anything about this ‘illness’ business, and wonders suddenly what Lord Memnoc has told the council and the people on John’s sudden bed-rest. That he has carefully omitted John’s condition is a warning flag, and John’s eyes narrow. “He is charged with caring for you and your health, on punishment of death.”

Mighty gods. “You can’t do that.”

But of course he could, he was ruler and lord of all these lands and the people in them. Every inch of his expression tells John so.

He’s saved from coming up with an appropriate response by Sherlock, who strolls in as if his father and twenty men aren’t all stuffed into John’s suite giving him varying looks of pity. “Father,” Sherlock says, eyeing Michael up and down as he shucks out of his scarf, his great cloak dusted with snow. “What an unpleasant surprise.” He glances behind his father at the councilmen, then to John on the other side of the room, as if they were all in the middle of a standoff and John is terribly outnumbered. Maybe he is. “What’s this about?”

“A gift,” Lord Memnoc says, looking over his son’s shoulder at John. “Leave us,” he says, and John thinks the lord is speaking to _him_ until all of the council members quickly file out into the hall, leaving the four of them alone. Michael has not moved, and the tension in John’s body finally forces him to slowly, slowly sit on the edge of his bed. Sherlock is there, right there in a moment, holding his arm as he does so. It’s terribly degrading, and John would tell him off if he wasn’t so obviously doing it on purpose, face a curl of dislike directed at his father. 

“I do not wish us to quarrel,” Lord Memnoc says with a sigh. “Michael’s family has been a trusted part of my household for some years. His father was your mother’s body servant during her pregnancy. He will care for your mate with appropriate consideration to his condition.”

John looks at the man, notes his posture, the rigidity of his frame. John was a knight, once. He recognizes battle in a man’s body. “I don’t want to live every day knowing that if I can’t carry this child to term, I condemn two innocent lives to death.”

Surprisingly, it’s Michael who speaks. “Begging your pardon my lord, the condition has been a part of my family’s contract since its inception.”

“Your contract?” John looks up at Sherlock. “What does that mean?” he asks, though he knows, of course he knows, the only people who had contracts were—

“Michael is a slave,” Sherlock says, slowly straightening from his crouch without once looking away from his father. John’s never heard of anything so preposterous, so completely absurd. The ten realms had put an end to slavery long before even John’s great grandfather had been born. 

“Michael is not a slave. His line belongs to my line, and mine to his, and this is all you need know on the matter.” Lord Memnoc’s expression softens when he looks down at John. “You need a body servant, child. He will keep you comfortable during these trying months.” 

He would have argued, at another time in his life. Maybe he still would. But not now. “Yes, sire.”

If Lord Memnoc is surprised at his capitulation, he does not show it. “I take my leave then,” he says, and walks out without another word. Sherlock makes a noise, low and deep in his throat, a sound like _war_ , and follows.

Michael has not moved, tension singing in his every muscle. He isn’t toweringly tall, so at least that’s something. “Is your name really Michael?”

The servant nods shortly. “Yes, my lord.”

“You aren’t here of your own free will,” he continues.

“No, my lord.”

“Do you mean me harm?”

If John had suggested outright murder, he would not have gotten such a response. “No, my lord!”

“Good. Good, then.” John closes his eyes. “I’m very tired.”

The man is in motion in an instant. Despite his size his hands are as careful with John as if he were made of fine glass. John supposes he must be, because when he stretches out in his bed he’s certain he’ll shatter. 

 

.

He dreams.

He is running, running, grass underfoot and wind in his hair, breathing like a bellows. He is being chased by his mate and he cries with joy, whickering with every pound of his heart. 

He is mated. He tosses his head, pawing the earth as he waits, waits for it to be done. When it is, they run again.

He is pregnant, heavily so. He is alone. The babe comes, and he is alone and he is lost. The babe comes.

Pain. Awful, tearing pain, pain like mating and not at all. There is no one, he is alone, he is lost. 

_John._

He comes awake violently, gasping; he will never be able to get another breath again. Strong hands grip him tight, Sherlock, _Sherlock_ in the lamplight, and he murmurs, “John,” and John thinks _alone, lost and alone._

But he isn’t. He isn’t alone. Sherlock is beside him, his hair falling over his forehead, eyes hazy with sleep. Sherlock is beside him, and he doesn’t even remark on the tears falling, unchecked, down John’s cheeks. Sherlock is beside him because they’re mated, because he’s John’s _alpha_ and oh, how could he have ever been so afraid of that? 

He makes a noise he could never name, only that he thinks it’s what a broken heart must sound like. Sherlock says his name again, so softly, and helps him lay back down, back in the curve of his body where John will always belong.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Trigger warnings: allusions to miscarriage, child endangerment, trauma. If any of this is a trigger for you, please read with caution.


	9. Chapter 9

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> John doesn’t know what to make of the changes in his body.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for all the lovely comments and words of encouragement! I'm so thrilled you all are enjoying the story!

John doesn’t know what to make of the changes in his body.

As much as it galls him, Lord Memnoc wasn’t wrong about John’s need for a servant like Michael, because as soon as he’s healed enough, and his appetite returns, John’s body becomes alien to him.

As John creeps over his fourth month and into the fifth, his child decides that she’ll give this ‘growing’ lark a try. And grow she does. His belly swells seemingly one day to the next, and his pregnancy goes from being nearly unnoticeable to fairly obvious, at least to him. His hips ache all the time, and his chest softens from muscle into a tell-tale curve. John had always thought pregnancy as something beautiful, the way omegas would ripen like sweet fruit, round and flushed and pink, but now that it’s happening to him he can barely look at himself, horrified by his full, darkened nipples, the spread of his hips, his belly round and soft and filled with a growing baby.

Michael becomes an axis of John’s world. He’s a kind man, thoughtful and considerate, but the honest truth of it is that John doesn’t know if that’s a product of what has been tasked of him, or if it’s his true character. Regardless, he’s grateful – pitifully grateful – for Michael’s assistance, most especially when he discovers he can no longer reach down to tie his boots without that awful tugging between his legs, when it becomes apparent that his center of gravity is off and stairs are John’s new enemy.

Sherlock, because he’s Sherlock, is cataloging the changes in John’s body like he’s a bloody experiment. If John wasn’t hard-wired now to need Sherlock by his side at every given moment of the day, he’d punt the bloody bastard out a window.

“I swear to the gods on high that if you bring a ruler near me, Sherlock, I will make you wish you were never born.”

That he says this while naked, and soft, and like he couldn’t harm a flea let alone a full-grown alpha, is laughable. He knows it is, but it doesn’t stop him glaring. Or well, glaring as much as he’s capable of at the moment.

It’s hedonistic, this, taking a bath mid-day. Only, Serra had been very specific in her instructions that he use the healing salts in the water every day, and by evening John’s so worn he can barely wash his face, let alone go through the hassle of a bath. It’s how he finds himself in his bathing tub before the mid-day meal every morning, Sherlock on his knees beside him, brushing his fingers through John’s hair, and gently, gently massaging the healing seam between John’s legs. Serra had been very specific on how it had to be done, to encourage blood flow and deeper healing of the tissues. John can’t reach very well, especially now with the baby in the way, and so Sherlock had taken Serra’s instructions to heart, following them to the letter, even the first time when every touch had made John whimper like a kicked dog.

The seam feels alright now, and John thinks it’s a good thing he can’t see it. He knows what it looks like, of course he does, but he doesn’t want to know what it looks like _on his body._ Sherlock seems to take great pleasure in helping him with this, as if some alpha instinct is being appeased. John would smack him one if Sherlock’s touch didn’t feel so good, like rubbing a sore spot until it warmed and loosened.

John stares down at his belly, there in the water. There’s more of it than there was even a few weeks ago. Sherlock is watching him, amused, and John glares at him because it’s his right as put-upon omega. “You already noticed this, didn’t you?”

Sherlock hums. His thumb gently, gently touches the spot below the base of John’s cock, where the seam had torn upwards. It’s newly healed, sensitive, and he rubs carefully, just as he’d been told, even when John flinches. “I notice everything about you.”

“And mark it in your ledger. I’ll bet you’ve even titled it, ‘Up the Duff: a Story.’ It’s like a lady’s bloody serial, complete with virile, if slightly hirsute, royal alpha and his insane family.”

“You tend to have mood swings this time of the day, for instance,” Sherlock continues. He looks so pleased with himself and his world and the glaring omega in it, but softens the self-satisfaction with a gentle kiss to John’s knee, sticking up out of the water. 

“I wouldn’t have mood swings if I wasn’t lugging your child about, you know,” John says, but seemingly of its own violation his hand moves over his belly, small enough to still be under the water, but which would grow and grow along with the rest of him. 

Sherlock continues his slow massage, gentle, gentle, and there in the quiet of John’s bathing room he can hear Michael in the other room, preparing the bed for John to rest. He watches Sherlock watch him, pale skin and dark hair falling over his eyes and the slow, steady touch between John’s legs, and ignores the voice in his head saying _so this is what love is._

Sherlock stops his gentle massage, and slides his hand up over John’s belly, resting there for a moment. His thumb circles John’s belly button, comforting and something else, and John’s cheeks heat. He closes his eyes until he can control himself, until he can wrestle his emotions back down to where they’re supposed to be. “I should tell you, my father has commanded I not leave your side.”

He’d been expecting it, would have been stupid not to under the circumstances. “And not because there’s a murderer about.”

“I’m sure that has something to do with it, yes. However, he thinks, and quite correctly, that you’re fully capable of running off into the woods and surviving on squirrels and tree bark on a wilderness trek back home.”

John can’t help it – he grins. “Does he now.”

“Mmm.” He can hear Sherlock’s amusement, and is pleased. “He seems to have gotten it in his head that you’re a wily little thing.”

“I do like to surprise people,” he says, and Sherlock touches a fingertip, so lightly, to the head of John’s cock. “Oi, watch it. Don’t get fresh.”

“Does it hurt?” Sherlock asks, so seriously that John opens his eyes again. 

“No. But I – if you –” and his cheeks go hot. Sherlock smirks at him, and John glowers. “That’s enough out of you.”

“I beg your forgiveness,” he says, which he is clearly not sorry _at all_. He stands to get the towels and John’s dressing gown, and John watches him move, the long line of his back and his strong hands. An alien flutter picks up in his throat that he can’t help but recognize as _panic_ , instinctual and base, when Sherlock turns his back to him – an automatic reaction he could no more deny than hunger or thirst, and which he has been experiencing for days now. “I’m here.”

“I know you are,” Sherlock murmurs, and doesn’t humiliate him by saying anything else. He returns with John’s things and carefully helps him stand up in the tub, gripping tight under John’s elbows until John’s stepped out of the water, until he’s steady on his feet. John hates it, hates himself and this creature he’s become, hates that Sherlock stepping away sends him into a panic and Sherlock coming close again fills him with comfort and security. 

Gently, and with the utmost care, Sherlock dries him. Shoulders and arms and chest, skin-close so all he has to do is lean down, just a little bit, to kiss the sensitive tip of one nipple. The sensation is new, and John groans, low and surprised. Sherlock smiles against his skin, licking softly with the broad of his tongue until John has to grip him by the forearms to keep himself steady. Sherlock kisses lightly before he kneels there at John’s feet to dry his belly, his backside, thighs and legs. He kisses the round curve of their baby, John’s belly button, his aching hips, then down, down, down. It is there, at John’s feet, that Sherlock takes John’s cock into his mouth for the first time.

The sound John makes would be mortifying, only he’s so surprised that he can’t cut it off before it comes. Sherlock glances up over John’s belly to meet his eyes. He lets John’s cock slip from his mouth to rest there, against his cheek. “Would you like me to bring you pleasure?”

“I don’t know,” John tells him, because he knows what comes next – he knows that with this touch comes a touch inside, he’ll beg Sherlock to touch inside. “Serra said it was okay.”

“She did,” Sherlock replies, but he gets more serious, one big hand around John’s hip, the other on his knee, holding him steady. “Truthfully, I’ve never paid much weight to what physicians say. If you feel ready, I can bring you pleasure. If not, I will put you to bed anyway, John, and restrict myself to kissing you until you’re begging, as is my right.”

Sherlock, though he hasn’t been at it long, has learned to play the alpha card. John goes wet from one moment to the next, slick and hot and hard. Usually he’s alright, it’s happened before, but this time it’s good that Sherlock is there, propping John up. When he feels the give of his knees Sherlock steadies him with a smirk that blooms across his face. He can’t help it, so John’s glare is only as ferocious as he can muster when he’s suddenly aroused like this. “Don’t,” he says. “It’s – if you—”

“If I what? You are mine to do with as I see fit.”

John’s body pulses, pleasure now instead of the muddy pain, then discomfort, he’d experienced for weeks. He moans when Sherlock touches his thumbs to both of John’s nipples, so sensitive that his body jackknifes up and in, closer, as close as he can get with his belly now. “No, Sherlock – Michael will hear, he’ll—”

And _there_ he is, the big royal idiot. His chin pugs up and he throws open the bathing room door, regardless of John’s nudity, of his own arousal, hard and jutting up from the narrow vee of his legs. Michael, because he’s a consummate professional, doesn’t so much as jump, there by the bed where he’s turning the blankets down. His nostrils flare, a tiny twitch, and instantly he knows what Sherlock wants. He bows his head low, bares his neck politely. “Sire,” he murmurs, leaving without another word, and John is alone, for the first time in too long, with his mate. 

He fully expects Sherlock to take John’s acceptance as a challenge, but Sherlock has made a career out of surprising people, never quite doing what he ought. Instead of the whirlwind John is expecting Sherlock takes him gently by the hand and leads him into the bedroom, with the same care he’d used even on their first night together, the two of them drugged to the gills. The bed is warm from heating stones when Sherlock helps him into it, when he draws the blankets up over the two of them. When they’re finally settled, Sherlock leans over him as if to check that he’s alright, before he disappears under the blankets. 

John’s never had his cock suckled on – he’s omega, and at home it was seen as something almost foolish, the kind of thing only inexperienced alphas did. Omegas rarely achieved orgasm with their penises alone, and John knows Sherlock knows that because he’s _told_ him, but he can’t deny the pleasure it brings him, or the slow, building burn at the base of his spine. It feels so good, and when he pushes the blankets back enough to look, to watch Sherlock’s pink mouth move up and down, it’s all he can do not to cry out. 

Sherlock glances up, as much as he can around their child, and his eyes are all pupil, swamped already in the scent of John’s body. “You never said.”

“What?”

“How good this is.”

John can’t arch his back, not really, but he can spread his legs. It’s as much invitation as he’s physically able to give, a supine lordosis pose that begs for breeding. Sherlock, watching him with dark eyes, brushes his fingertips down to where John’s gone wet. “Oh, John. I’ve already been quite successful on that score, don’t you think?”

“You know, it’s really amazing what a prick you are,” John says conversationally, proud that his voice doesn’t hitch, not even when Sherlock licks across the head of his cock again. He can’t break the pose, rolling his hips fretfully. “Sherlock, please,” he finally begs, fingers clenched in the sheets around them. “Don’t you want to fuck me?”

“Always. But as of now, you’re hardly in the state of health necessary for what I wish to do to you.” 

That Sherlock says this matter-of-factly, as if it’s a foregone conclusion, makes John pulse and moan. It’s mortifying, and Sherlock looks so bloody _satisfied_ that John glares at him, cheeks flushed. “You can’t leave me like this.”

“I could. It would be well within my right,” Sherlock declares, which is absurd when they both know what a soft touch he is. “What do you want?”

“Your cock inside me.”

“Mmm.” Sherlock studies him, there between his legs, serious now even as he strokes John’s own cock. “What do you want, John?”

It’s the kind of question that’s a double edged sword, a question that lends a deeper meaning than Sherlock is intending. He wants so many things. Before this he wanted to be home, with his friends and his sister and his people. Before this, he wanted to fight with his men, to be strong and hard and agile, to be worthy of his title and his line.

Now, though. Now he wants Sherlock, with his stupid face and stupid hair, so intelligent and beautiful and good to him, especially now when John doesn’t deserve it, in the face of so many lies and secrets. Now he wants the baby in his belly, wants to teach her to be strong, not weak-willed and soft and in need of rescuing like her aunt but _fearless_ , like John once was. He loves his child and it’s humiliating, because he’s exactly where his father wanted him to be, when he sold John to these people – on his back, naked and pregnant and begging. He’s so glad it’s only Serra here in this place, that she is the only one who will ever see him brought down so low.

Perhaps sensing the box he’s opened, Sherlock crawls up next to him, kisses with the sincerity that speaks of answering thoughts, a reply to John’s aching sorrow. When he leans back, just enough, his eyes aren’t kind – never that – but filled with a quiet, sincere understanding. “What do you want, John?”

He isn’t sure he can say it, until suddenly he can. He does. “Your fingers. And your mouth on me.”

“I can accomplish the former quite easily,” Sherlock murmurs, and just like that, without another word, he presses two fingers inside where John is slick and hot and needy. Sherlock kisses him through his surprised cry, licks along the corner of John’s mouth. “Where would you like my mouth? There are so many parts of you I want to kiss. Perhaps here?” A rasp of teeth to his neck. “Or here?” The lightest touch at the hollow of his throat. “Oh, I know. Where you’ve become sensitive,” Sherlock murmurs, and licks across John’s nipple again.

He thrashes, startled and gasping, and fists both hands in Sherlock’s hair. Sherlock doesn’t stop, kissing lightly across his chest where he’s already filling, where he’ll grow and swell and, a few months from now, feed their child. It’s a ways off, but the sensitivity is a line directly to Sherlock’s fingers, as they thrust lightly in and out. 

His cock jumps and Sherlock smiles, pressing a kiss to his belly before sliding back down. Oh, how could John had ever thought this wasn’t done? He _mewls_ , and he would be mortified only Sherlock’s added a finger, three now to fill where he wants it most, and Sherlock is so good, so perfect, as if he’d spent his life on his knees sucking cock. 

Sherlock kisses down the angry red lines of the healed seam, and licks around his fingers, there at the slick wet of John’s hole.

The orgasm takes him by surprise. John’s always found pleasure easily, but this – this is something wholly different. The contractions of orgasm tug and pull and for a moment he’s terrified he’s going to rip himself open again, but then the pleasure seizes through his body and for the first time in his life, he screams.

Sherlock is there, John can hear him saying his name, but he can’t move, caught in the rictus of his own pleasure. When he arches back Sherlock sucks on his cock, hardwettight, and John can’t even scream again, his breath is gone, and the contractions grow strong, stronger, and Sherlock is curling his fingers like a knot and John comes again, the orgasms piggy-backed on one another until it’s too much, _too much_ and Sherlock stills, lets the pleasure ebb and flow and finally, finally ease.

He hears himself sobbing for air, and Sherlock is murmuring his name, and the contractions are still there, milking Sherlock’s fingers like he’d milk a knot. He whimpers, from deep inside, because he wants, he wants, and Sherlock is staring up at him like a stunned fish so he isn’t going to be any help whatsoever.

John shoves Sherlock backwards, sends him sprawling across the bed, because John’s pregnant, not incapable. Granted, pleasure-drunk as he is, and with all the balance problems he’s been having, it takes him longer than he’d like to get himself upright and straddling Sherlock’s legs, but it’s worth it for Sherlock’s, “ _John_ ,” so surprised and beautiful like he doesn’t understand what just happened, or what’s happening now.

John ignores him, sliding down Sherlock’s cock, down, down, down over Sherlock’s pleasure-swollen knot, and it feels so good when it slips in, when his body closes down around it. It’s what he wanted, and he can come again like this, he can – “Sherlock,” he begs, and Sherlock grips both his hands, laces their fingers and holds him upright, steady, so John can push against him. He looks so stunned, there between John’s legs, hair wild and eyes dark, and his knot is so big now that it won’t come back out so John _writhes_ , circles it where he wants it and grinds down, using his alpha for his own pleasure, as is his right. Sherlock is saying his name, moaning it, crying it, eyes squeezed shut and fingers clamped on John’s, and _this_ is what it feels like to ride Sherlock hard, like John would drive a horse across the plains for the first time, Sherlock’s heart roaring between John’s thighs.

He thrusts, the knot catching until it swells and John can’t move, he can only squeeze down around it, hard and then harder, until Sherlock cries out his name and fills John full.

 

.

When he wakes, later, it’s to a setting sun and the coolness of an empty bed. His heart kicks up in a gallop, but then Sherlock murmurs some bit of nonsense, a rumble in his chest, and John’s chest squeezes, painful and tight.

Sherlock is at his lab table at the foot of John’s bed, hair a tangled mess. When he catches John watching, a thousand emotions cross his face, too quick to name, and John never could pass up an opportunity like this. “You look well fucked,” John says, and thrills in Sherlock’s sudden, furious blush. 

“I believe you’ve got that mixed up,” Sherlock says, uppity and beautiful and like he doesn’t have slashes of red pinking his cheeks. “I thought you’d sleep for the rest of the afternoon. Did I wake you?”

Sherlock is as new to this ‘mated’ business as John is, so he doesn’t tell him that there is a growing _awareness_ of Sherlock inside of him, and he’s certain it’s answered in Sherlock’s own mind. He’s conscious of what it is, but the two of them have long operated on a steady diet of denial, This Isn’t Bloody Happening So Why Even Talk About It, and John is loathe to break it, even here, even now.

“What are you doing?” John asks, though he doesn’t have to, not really. Sherlock exhales, rubbing a hand over his face, and it’s so uncharacteristic, so out of the norm, that John can’t help but climb up out of the bed. He steadies himself with one of the bedposts as he pulls on his dressing gown, and comes round to where Sherlock is perched like a bird on his stool. 

It’s all there, the evidence they’d collected. The fibers found on the kitchen maid’s body, the hair samples from her clenched fist, her apron. Sherlock had ignored the case for weeks, because of John’s reckless stupidity. The guilt is ferocious, there in the pit of his belly. “I imagine they’ve buried her.”

“A few weeks ago,” Sherlock says, and runs his fingers through his hair. No wonder it’s standing up the way it is. “My uncle has suspended the search. He seems to think that because the snow has come, the killer will go to ground.”

“Is he right?”

Sherlock lets out an explosive huff and clambers off of his stool to pace the length of John’s rooms. “Of course not. The answer is staring me in the face.”

“It can’t be that simple, if you haven’t figured it out yet,” John says sensibly. The long plane of Sherlock’s naked back meets the band of his trousers in such a way that John thinks they should really go back to bed. “Narrow down the list of suspects.”

“Impossible.”

“Why?”

“Because this is no common killer,” Sherlock tells him, legs eating up the room. His hair is wild around his face, ludicrously good-looking, and John knows he must never, ever tell Sherlock that. “He hasn’t followed any of the rules.”

“Well, that’s a new one to me,” John says, and climbs up onto Sherlock’s stool. He pretends not to notice Sherlock freeze mid-stride as he does so, and settles himself comfortably. “Since when do serial killers have rules?”

“Homicide is by its nature chaotic,” Sherlock says, and whirls back around. “Normal people, who kill other people in passion or anger or by accident, are simplistic in their chaos. A spurned woman might take up a vase and crash it over the head of her lover. A jealous husband might strangle his wife over an imagined slight. A faulty mechanism may break and kill a worker.” Sherlock stops, steepled fingers tapping his chin. “Premeditated murder is systematic, planned out. The killer takes his time to consider all variables, choose a murder weapon, choose a time and place. Serial killers like the one we’re after find pleasure in their rituals, in the _chase_. The good ones always want to get caught.”

There’s a knock at the door, startling them both, and at John’s call, Michael enters. “My lords, Lord Mycroft and Sir Lestrade have arrived.”

“Did you call them? _Sherlock_ ,” John hisses, tightening his dressing gown around himself.

Sherlock waves at him as if he’s being particularly stupid. “Oh, they won’t care, you’re my mate aren’t you?”

“I sincerely doubt that your brother wants to smell the evidence,” John says, but then Mycroft and Lestrade are sweeping in and John’s in a total state of undress, Sherlock is _shirtless_ and John all but throws his hands up in the air. “Sincerely, right, _sincerely_ , it’s a miracle you’ve managed this long without someone turning your nose inside out, you great royal idiot.”

Mycroft freezes, staring at John as if he’s grown another head, but Lestrade grins, lightning quick and delighted. Mycroft sighs, loudly. “When you requested our presence, brother mine, you failed to mention it would be _post coital_. My deepest apologies John; despite the rather telling evidence of this moment, my brother wasn’t _actually_ raised in a barn.”

“Mostly,” Lestrade agrees, and ignores Sherlock’s scowl to look over the table. “What’s all this then?” But before Sherlock has a chance to say anything, he sighs. “Sherlock, I told you that your father and I decided to--”

“Not about this,” Sherlock replies with an imperious little wave of his hand, but that he pairs it with a glare very obviously implies that he and his uncle would be having words. 

He shifts uncomfortably, and it’s so out of the norm that Mycroft arches an eyebrow. “So you’ve decided to take my advice.”

“I have done no such thing,” Sherlock snaps, but his expression does something complicated when his eyes meet John’s. “John, I – you do know that I – ” and well, this isn’t embarrassing at all, because Sherlock is _stuttering_ , and it’s charming as hell. “I value you, and will protect you for all the years we are together.”

There is a very quiet, very deep part of John that he can’t name, which wonders at his own worth to these people, to himself, because he knows why he’s here. He knows what is being asked of him, what his life is now for. He doesn’t acknowledge it, because it has claws, waiting to strip him to the bone. “I don’t think I like where this is going, Sherlock, but continue.”

“I realized that – that is, danger aside, my father was very specific in that—”

“Oh for heaven’s sake,” Mycroft says. “John, my father plans for any and all eventualities. You must select another mother for your child.”

John goes very cold, and very still, because Sherlock said it would happen, he said Lord Memnoc would take their children if he thought John to be unfit. 

John hears someone say, “ _You can’t have my child_ ,” and Mycroft takes three steps back, and Lestrade holds his hands up, eyes wide, “No, _no_ John, no one is going to take her,” and John realizes the voice he just heard, the voice filled with violence, with _murder_ , is _his_. 

“You can’t have her,” John snarls, and his alpha is near but it doesn’t matter, these are instincts he could no more suppress than breathing. He hears a wild roaring in his ears, and for the first time in months he tracks the entrances and exits, the potential weapons around him. He would kill them, he knows with a cold certainty. He would kill them both, or die trying.

“I told you this would happen, but as always you know best,” Sherlock says somewhere over John’s shoulder, but then he’s close, warm and near at John’s back. “Shhh,” he murmurs, and lowers John’s arm, and the beaker he realizes he’s holding, down. Sherlock isn’t angry, and for a moment the wild animal inside of him is terrified that his _alpha isn’t protecting him_ , before sanity returns. 

Sherlock’s calm breaks through the haze of fury clouding John’s eyes, and he sucks in a sharp, startled breath. 

His law-brother is standing ten feet away, wearing an expression of stunned dismay, and Lestrade has both hands up, mouth hanging open, as if he can’t process what just happened. John doesn’t know what to say, what he could possibly say, to explain what he’s just done. He’d threatened his alpha’s family. He’d threatened violence on Sherlock’s pack, and he’s under no delusions about his place here. 

“I’m sorry,” he mumbles from numb lips. “I beg for your forgiveness.”

“No,” Mycroft says; he clears his throat and tries again. “No, it is I who should apologize. I didn’t realize – that is, I should have explained myself better. John, no one in this Realm will take your child from you while you still breathe. My father’s concern is if the unthinkable should happen. It is our custom to prepare for such disasters, ceremonies and whatnot of united households, but neither he nor I had taken into account your fiercely protective nature.” He comes close, now, and John is humbled by the admiration in that gaze. “A thousand apologies to the both of you.”

The sensation is not unlike freefall. He’s lost control for the first time since he was small and pimply and wet behind the ears, and his face flames hot. Sherlock turns him gently into his arms, and John goes, which only makes the heat worse, embarrassment descending quickly into bright, painful mortification, nibbling at his nerve endings. The door opens and closes and they’re alone, but still John can’t face the world, not yet.

“We’re not talking about this,” Sherlock replies above him, as if they’re discussing the weather. 

“I nearly brained your brother.”

“It would have been well deserved, my brother is an idiot,” Sherlock answers smartly, and cards his fingers through John’s hair. “Your reaction was textbook.”

John sighs, muffled at Sherlock’s clavicle. “How would you know?”

“I’m studied.” At John’s questioning noise, he sighs. “Lady Hudson is tutoring me.”

“When?”

“At night, after you’ve gone to sleep. She thinks it’s criminal I’m an idiot about omegas, taking into account that I’m mated to one. I pointed out that judging by the collar of her blouse and the smudge of ink on her thumb she has a new lover, which is unfortunate because her lover is married, and she smacked me rather hard on the head.”

John snorts, helpless. “You’ve really been learning about omegas?”

“As much as possible,” Sherlock says, and brushes the backs of his fingers gently over John’s cheek. “If I’m to be father to one, it seemed pertinent that I read up.”

The shock of love strikes him between the ribs. He could no more protect himself from it than he could if he were in full armor. 

“Besides, I felt it prudent for our current situation. You were already uncomfortably emotional, it stood to reason that pregnancy would only heighten your proclivity towards hysteri –oof,” Sherlock groans, and rubs his side where John just shoved his elbow.


	10. Chapter 10

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The day before the winter solstice, the court discovers John is pregnant.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you all for the wonderful comments! Work has been kicking my ass up, down and sideways, so I haven't had nearly as much time to write as I would like. To make up for it, I'm posting a longer-than-usual chapter, filled with a lot of explanations that are leading up to the end.
> 
> Thank you all for keeping with it, and enjoy!

The day before the winter solstice, the court discovers John is pregnant. 

John is surprised by how _un_ surprised he is. He has an exceptional servant in Michael, and the man has undoubtedly threatened bodily harm to gossiping servants on more than one occasion, but it was only a matter of time. There was only so much he could hide, only so many ways he could stand, before it became obvious. 

It would be shocking if he wasn’t so used to it, because once there is gossip, no matter how miniscule, it grows legs. Everyone seems to have an opinion, and overnight John has new friends and new enemies, people who smile at him when they had otherwise never given him any acknowledgement, others – notably beta woman – who glare as if he’s shit on the bottom of their shoe. As is typical with court gossip, it gets more dramatic the longer it’s passed from person to person. Michael tells him that, according to the latest news, John is having twin boys, they’ve decided to name them Siger and Sherrinford (after Sherlock’s grandfathers), he’s due in early summer, and it’s expected there will be a terrible war when they reach maturity, as was often the case when a throne was at stake.

The court expects virile, male alphas. John doesn’t know what’s going to happen when he gives birth to his omega girl-child.

“You shouldn’t let it worry you overmuch,” Mycroft tells him. He’s all long legs and steepled fingers, perched there on John’s settee like a great bird of prey, hooked nose and all. John has no idea why people consider him harmless, as if by not having magic he’s somehow less of a threat. People, John long ago learned, are stupid.

“Yes, well, that’s a fine thing for you to say,” John mutters, as Michael helps him button his under-coat. His belly is too obvious to ignore in this ceremonial get-up, but that’s half the point.  
“You don’t have court ladies all but spitting on you when you walk by.”

Mycroft’s eyes narrow to dangerous little slits, and the room is flooded with the sour scent of an alpha’s anger. “Has someone done that to you?”

The scent tickles John’s senses, a hold-over from long ago ancestor omegas who preened at the smell of an alpha angry on their behalf. He can’t help it – he laughs. “Not you too.”

“I have no idea what you mean,” Mycroft says with a sniff. 

“You like me, don’t you?”

“You are mate to my brother, future king of this realm.” 

“You do! You like me, mates and kings and all that nonsense aside, you like me, which means that you should be taking my very sincere distress right now at face value.”

Mycroft rolls his eyes so mightily it’s a miracle they don’t get stuck that way. If he hadn’t already been sitting, John’s certain Mycroft would have thrown himself, Sherlock-style, over the settee. “For heaven’s sake, it’s a religious ceremony, not the gallows.”

“As I see it, I’m being led like a particularly fat sheep to the slaughter.”

“There is a very, very small amount of ritual blood-letting—”

“See? Do you hear this, Michael? Let it go on the record, my law-brother is sacrificing me to the gods.”

Michael glances up from where he’s adjusting John’s vest, a small smile ticking in the corner of his mouth. “Yes, Sire.”

“—which I’m certain the Priestess will do away with in light of current circumstances,” Mycroft continues with a sigh. “There will be animal sacrifices and an enormous feast this evening, for the town’s folk as well as for us. It is at this time that I’ve recommended to my brother he do away with all this gossip and announce your pregnancy before you both send the ladies of this court into hysterics.”

“Haven’t you heard? I’m having twins.”

Mycroft all but slaps a hand to his face. It’s ridiculous how funny it is. “An announcement is prudent at this juncture.”

“What’s prudent? Why are you watching my mate get dressed? You really are a letch,” Sherlock says, sailing into the room with a rush of cold air. His cloak is dusted with snow, and he’s carrying three rather cranky books in his arms, if the irritated ruffling of pages is any indication. “Ah, John, nearly ready then.”

“Mycroft insists it’s a simple ceremony. I’m holding out on an opinion until I come back with all my bits intact.”

Sherlock pauses, staring at him. “This is you, joking.”

“Of course it is, you lug. You’re not going to be culturally insensitive like your brother and ask if my people typically cut off bits in sacrifice, right?”

“I’ll see to the carriage,” Mycroft says, with all the grace of a braying donkey, and leaves them to it. Sherlock scowls at his back, which is always attractive and absolutely hilarious. 

There is an endless night, now, and John understands why it’s called the Realm of the Seven Moons. Winter stars blanket a dark sky, make candles and lamps necessary earlier and earlier each day. The night is so dark and deep and cold that their meager light barely seems enough to keep it at bay.

The carriage is not unlike the one John had ridden in, when he’d been sold to the Realm of the Seven Moons. What’s new is how uncomfortable he is in it, how painful it is for him to sit on the bench with each jolt of the cobblestone street working its way up his spine. Sherlock sits beside him, supporting his back with a terrible expression on his face, even while there’s nothing to be done about it. John can’t be outside for any prolonged length of time, but now it’s obvious he can’t be in a carriage either. He tries to ignore the horrible feeling of claustrophobia it gives him, being so trapped.

When they go over a particularly awful pothole John can’t help a low gasp, and Mycroft looks pained. “This was a mistake.”

“I’m fine,” John says.

“Obviously,” Sherlock replies through clenched teeth. 

“I’m _fine_ ,” John says again, and glares when they exchange a look. “I’m pregnant and sitting in a carriage more suited for goats, what do you expect?”

Mycroft’s expression is worth the price of admission. 

“Stop the carriage,” Sherlock suddenly says.

“Sherlock, I said I—”

“No,” Sherlock says, clambering out. That’s when John notices Lestrade and his men at the entrance to the temple. Nearly a dozen men are holding the town’s people back. Women are screaming. 

“What’s going on? Sherlock,” John says, and high above them, the alarm bells begin to ring. 

There’s the metallic roar of armor and a dozen voices talking over one another, nearly lost under the alarm bells ringing throughout the palace. John can just see them through the parapet windows, the winter moonlight reflecting off the metal like diamonds glittering in the dirt. 

Sherlock’s got such a grip on him John thinks he’ll have his mate’s fingertips imprinted in his bones when he lets go, but John’s got one just as hard, so that’s something.

They rush together to the temple, as much as John is capable of rushing, anyhow. Lestrade is in the doorway to the temple, and there are so many people John can’t see very well, small as he has long accepted he is in this place, but still, there – still – 

Sherlock murmurs, “John,” and John doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand, because sprawled on the ground in the middle of the temple, in a pool of dark, congealing blood, are Myron and Bohin.

There is a sudden, awful silence, in which John can hear himself breathing, too fast, too loud. There are eyes on them, waiting. He knows what they’re waiting for, but John was born a prince, and his father had beaten public displays of emotion out of him long ago.

It’s good that Sherlock is here, that he’s beside him, because John’s knees are going to come out from under him, he’s going to give these people the show they want. Sherlock helps John keep his feet as the knights press the crowd back, clearing the temple and closing the doors. It is only then, when all have gone but for Sherlock and his family, that John lets himself quietly, quietly fall apart.

He hears Lord Memnoc’s voice, talking to him, but all he can see are open, vacant eyes the color of sea glass. All he can see is Myron, so tall and handsome, quick to laugh and who mother henned the way only ferociously protective alphas could mother hen. The man who had been John’s shield, who had fought with him back-to-back, is on the ground, with his throat torn out. 

And beside him, belly cut open hip to hip, blood bubbling from his lips with every gasp, is Bohin.

He doesn’t know what’s happening, or if the person responsible is still here, but John can no more stop himself from kneeling at Bohin’s side than he can to breathe. Bohin’s eyes are fluttering, filmy and going blank, but there is still recognition in them, there is still love in them. “My friend,” he whispers, and Bohin smiles. His teeth are painted with his life’s blood. “Who has done this to you?”

“The man who would seek his revenge,” Bohin rasps. His voice is like boots on ground glass. He grasps John’s hand tightly, so tightly his bones creak. “We came with a message,” he says, but not to John – to Sherlock, kneeling at John’s side. “The Lord of the Wood was assassinated by someone claiming to be the Hand of the Seven Moons. The peace treaty has fallen. They march on you at the first spring thaw.”

There are voices, voices all around them, Lord Memnoc’s low, furious snarl, and Lestrade giving orders, and Serra shouting to get through, but it doesn’t matter. Bohin is beyond her aid. His friend knows it, and now that his message has been given there is peace there in his beautiful face. He smiles at John, even as his body shakes, as it fights its own death. “We promised, once, long ago.”

John grasps his hand tightly in both of his, squeezing with all of his strength. He can barely speak, each word clawing him open until he is only sinew and bone, until his blood joins the pool on the ground. They had memorized it as children, at their shield-master’s knee. Never would they have known that they would say it so many times over the years. That they would say it to one another. “You are blessed, Horse Lord. Set down your yoke; you have done your duty. Become one with the earth, my brother.”

It is how Bohin dies, the words of their people on John’s lips. He dies with his eyes closed, trusting John to the end, even when John had done nothing, _nothing_ , to deserve it.

Sherlock is murmuring, some kind of nonsense, encircling him as if the demons would come out of the shadows to gobble John up. He lets Sherlock take his weight, lets himself breathe the scent of his mate, the flavor of Sherlock’s fury sour on his tongue. Lord Memnoc is at his other side, his face unreadable, but he can no more hide his scent than Sherlock can. It is anger, potent and sharp. 

“John,” Sherlock says into his ear, and John knows he will never stop seeing Bohin’s eyes there in the dark corners of his eyes for as long as he lives. He hears Lord Memnoc as if he’s very far away, but Sherlock just murmurs to him, “Who are they? Did you ask them to come?”

He forces himself to look at Bohin’s familiar face, his childhood friend, the boy he had played with and the man he had trained with, and suddenly John’s shaking, shaking so hard his teeth are chattering. “He cut him. _He cut him open_ ,” and oh that it’s only Sherlock’s family here, watching this, because John has been to war, he has killed people, and yet even those experiences had not prepared him for this, a death so close to his heart.

He barely hears his mate’s murmurs, and when strong arms come around him it’s all he can do not to cling. There is no hiding from this, he understands now. There is no escape. There is only the alpha he’s been given to, the alpha he has lied to and manipulated. 

It is because of John that there will be war. It is because of him that countless lives will be lost.

He thinks back to that first night, the two of them together. He had been so frightened that Sherlock would use the chastity piece on him as punishment, never realizing that the bonds of ownership had already been locked around his wrists, passed from John’s father to Sherlock. His destiny was never his, his choices were never his, and his life belongs to this man, this man he has been given to, this man who John has put in so much danger. 

He looks up at his mate, at this man who has shielded him and protected him, who John has fought every moment of every day, as if Sherlock were the embodiment of John’s war with his very nature. He looks at his mate and can finally tell the secret that has been killing him.

“Twenty years ago, my father went to war with the Elk Lords. The Elk Lord murdered two of my father’s brothers, and my father retaliated by taking the Elk Lord’s sister, Isabel, as his whore.”

As a small child he could remember thinking she was a bit like one of his sister’s porcelain dolls, so thin she looked as if a strong wind would carry her away. She had been breathtakingly beautiful, and so kind – often, when he saw her in the halls, she would stop and speak to him as if he were her own child, giving him sweets from her pockets, and once even letting him hold her hand for a bit for a walk outside. She’d been so different from his own mother, who had always been cold, aloof, a bartered bride from the western realm with no want for children. Sometimes, in his most private thoughts, John had wished that Isabel was his mother.

“After the war restitutions were made, friendship rekindled between the realms. There were a dozen marriages, interlocking the Elk Lords and Horse Lords forever in family. As restitution, Isabel was married into the Realm of the Wood to my father’s brother, where she lived as queen until her death.” He doesn’t want to say it, he doesn’t want to think it, but he has to. He has to. “It was there that she gave birth to my father’s bastard. He was raised by my uncle as his own child.”

He can feel Sherlock’s gaze, pricking at his skin, even through his closed eyes. “No one knows,” he says, shuddering. “Do you see now? Do you see the ramifications of this? If the Realm of the Wood attacks you – and they will, Sherlock – the treaties with the Horse Lords and the Elk Lords will stand firm, superseding all others.” He looks at his friends, discarded like dirt on the side of the road. “Bohin and Myron gave their lives to warn us.”

Now, now he can look at Sherlock. That mind is racing, piecing together the clues as only Sherlock can. It is so beautiful, watching the realization bloom on Sherlock’s face. 

“James took his mother’s maiden title, so when the time came for my sister to be bartered off like a prized animal, he could blackmail my father into allowing the marriage. He would have hurt her, killed her in everything but body, and my father would have let him, to save himself the embarrassment of exposing what he had done.” 

When John had overstepped his place, had acted like the alpha son he was raised to be, his father had used his nature against him, had chained him and sold him to the mages of the north. He had hurt John, had allowed the use of poison to send him into a heat so terrible he had clawed into his skin at the end, and when that wasn’t enough, he sent Serra escorted by the man who John had given up his life to protect his sister from. His father had sent James here because he wanted John to suffer for the choices he had made, because it was his sister’s arrow in the elk and not John’s, because honor dictated Heriathin be heir to the crown. An omega girl-child, to rule his kingdom on his passing. 

His father had underestimated the danger his family was in, and here, now, was the consequence.

The numb feeling he’d been keeping at bay seeps down, deep down into the guts of himself. “I didn’t think he would dare, not here, not under your father’s eye. I was wrong.” John can barely speak, but he has to say it, he has to let it come now, for all their sakes. “He means to destroy you all, because I took his revenge away from him when my sister won the crown.”

“Thank you,” Sherlock murmurs, and stares down at him with those beautiful eyes, endless and unreadable. He stands, and when John’s fingers catch at his he squeezes, once, hard, and kisses the back of John’s knuckles. “Hush, now. Let me think.”

And so John quiets. Sherlock paces the room, and Mycroft kneels down beside John, without touching him, and Lord Memnoc stands as still and silent as death.

John is empty, and silent. 

 

.

It is too cold, the ground too hard for a burial, and so Bohin and Myron are sent to the ancestors on a pyre, together. It is fitting – they were mated, after all. It takes many hours for the fire to die, and when it is gone there is only ash and smoke left. 

The following days bleed together. There is only the cold, painful on his skin, and Sherlock’s constant presence at his side. There are the hours with Lady Hudson and Lady Turner, who, now that they know of his pregnancy, do their best to lead him through it. There are visits from Serra, who leaves with her mouth pursed tighter and tighter each time, though John is healthy now. She assures him he’s healed beautifully and, barring no complications, should be able to give birth normally. 

In the evenings there are long, hushed meetings between Lord Memnoc and his sons. They argue, and shout, and plan, and later John can’t recall a thing they talked about. They are hunting for James, he knows, but it’s useless. If John is pawn in this game than so are Sherlock and his family. They can’t see the end coming, no more than John can.

In between those moments, though, are long stretches of silence. The great winter had brought with it a quieting of the birds and bees, and now the only sounds John can hear from his balcony are the rush of wind through the frozen tree boughs, the crunch of boots far down below in the courtyard. The world has gone to sleep, and so John does too.

He doesn’t do it on purpose, only it’s so quiet in his head, now that the constant anxiety is gone. In its place is a peculiar numbness, as if a curtain has been drawn between his mind and the rest of the world. He doesn’t understand it, but accepts it, as he has learned to accept all things.

He thinks Sherlock might be concerned, but he has nothing to worry about any longer. John has stopped fighting. 

His dreams are beautiful, vivid things, filled with impossibilities. Worlds where he became the physician he always wanted to be, where he is still strong and fast and fearless. Worlds where he isn’t defined by his nature but by what he can _do_ , what he can _offer_. Worlds where he isn’t a pawn in a game he could never hope to understand.

Michael becomes his constant companion. He helps John bathe, and eat, and works the knots out of his muscles when they tense into agony. When Sherlock is there, he is at his lab table. He feels Sherlock’s eyes on him at all times, but there is nothing John can say to him, nothing he could possibly do to apologize for all that he has done. He paces, and John watches him. He throws temper tantrums, hurling books across the room, breaking glass, and John doesn’t flinch. There’s no reason to. Sherlock would never hurt him, not while he carried his child. 

After her birth, he thinks perhaps they are going to send him back to his people. He will have provided a child, their marriage contract will be fulfilled. It would be well within their right. There has been too much that can’t be undone. 

It is there, in his cold and silent room, that John realizes he is no longer Jounhin of the Horse Lords, warrior prince of the plains. He is no longer the man who could take down an elk from two hundred paces, the man who could break wild stallions into proud, beautiful creatures, the man who woke up every morning chomping at the bit for a new adventure. He is no longer the king he had grown up to be. He is the embodiment of his father’s revenge, omega bitch to the house of the Seven Moons. If he had accepted his place, when he was sold to these people, so much of what had transpired could have been stopped. If he had accepted his place, he could have saved Bohin and Myron, could have prevented James from setting a plan into action that would destroy this realm for no other reason than John was in it.

Sherlock rarely sleeps anymore, and so it is welcome when his mate comes to him, deep in the dead of night, sliding down under John’s blankets where it is warm. His skin is cold but the touch of his alpha is enough to make John curl in against him. Sherlock presses against his back and cradles the baby in John’s belly, possessive over John’s skin. He doesn’t speak, but the terrible anxiety that had been floating above John’s numbness settles. 

It is dark, and cold, and the wind batters the windows and John stares out into the black shadows of his room. He knows why Sherlock is here. He understands, now. He accepts, now, and so it is there, in the dark, that he says, “You can have me, if you want. You don’t have to ask.”

The bedside candle flickers into life with a murmured word, and Sherlock is there, propped on one elbow looking down at him. An expression of deep, profound sadness crosses Sherlock’s face, and John can’t bear to look at it. He can’t bear it. “You insult me.”

John hates himself for the lick of fear up his spine. “Sherlock.”

Sherlock studies him, there in the flickering candlelight. “You are my mate, above all else, as I am yours. I have earned better than that from you.” 

John hears himself whine as he has never done. It comes from a place he can’t name only that it is the center of him, as if he’d plucked at the terror of being helpless and given it voice. 

John is no longer the man he was. John has been made weak by the child in his body, by the mate who put her there, by a grief so strong his heart will never be whole again. He has been made weak and now he can’t protect himself, or her; now he must rely on the man staring at him with a raw edge of hurt in his eyes. 

He says, blind with tears, “I’m sorry.”

“You were made to be mine,” Sherlock murmurs, cupping his cheek and turning his face to him. “Do you believe that?”

“I lied to you. I hurt you, and your family.”

“You did, yes,” Sherlock murmurs, fingers in the tangle of John’s hair. “But not purposely, not with malicious intent. You tried to carry the world on your shoulders because no one was willing to share that burden with you, because your father was unable to see the truth of his mistakes. You saved your sister in the only way you knew how, and gave your life in return. Your courage takes my breath away, John.” He sweeps his thumbs gently, gently over the wet on John’s cheeks. “But now, you are not alone. Let me help you. Let me carry some of this weight.”

“I’ve started a war,” John chokes out. He sits up, out of the warmth of Sherlock’s touch. “You don’t understand.”

“I do understand,” Sherlock tells him, and sits up as well. The other lights in the room flare to life, and Sherlock pulls his hands down from his face. “None of this is your fault. Brave as you are, strong as you are, you are omega. You said, once, that your magic was unlike mine, but you were wrong. Didn’t your father ever tell you?”

“Don’t—” 

“You are a beacon of light in the dark,” Sherlock says, squeezing John’s hands tightly. “You guide me to see, even when you yourself cannot, John, and so let me ease your burden. You said James took his mother’s maiden title, so that when the time came for your sister to be sold as chattel he could blackmail your father into allowing the marriage. You were wrong. It was you, all along. James was going to blackmail your father into a marriage with _you_.”

John freezes, stares at his mate through the film of wet. “You can’t know that. You can’t possibly know that.”

“It makes perfect sense. The son raised to be a king, raised to inherit a kingdom. He wanted that power over you, to see you brought to your knees as the living embodiment of his revenge. You took his place. He was the rightful son and heir, as an alpha son by blood.” He shakes John, once. “Think. Why didn’t he stay in your realm? Why did he come here? He could have blackmailed your father for your sister’s hand – her choice would have been taken from her just as easily now as before she won the crown. Instead he came here, followed you to my realm, and planned his revenge. He means to destroy you John, if not through marriage than through war.”

And John knows, as Sherlock says it, that his words are truth.

“He killed the woman. The kitchen maid,” Sherlock says, and John closes his eyes. 

“Yes. I think so.”

“And the student knight? Sir Eveningwood.”

“Yes.”

Sherlock goes still for a moment before letting out a measured, calm breath. “He was preparing himself, before he announced his arrival. It was James, all along. The man hunting in a crowd.”

John closes his eyes against Sherlock’s words, but all his mate does is card his fingers through John’s hair, gently, gently. “The river. The river is the answer,” Sherlock says. “Less than a day’s ride from the Realm of the Wood to the lake where the river empties. James was using the river to come into my father’s realm undetected. He was already protected from the blood charms by matter of birth – Lady Isabel was my father’s cousin.” 

He lets Sherlock lay him down once more, lets Sherlock pull him close, there to rest his head at his mate’s shoulder. There is only the sound of the wind whistling against the window, the fire popping in his hearth. They’re connected now by more than marriage, and John can sense his mate’s anger, his fear, his disgust. He shies away from it, even when Sherlock brings him in, brings him closer. “He tried to blackmail Sir Eveningwood. He wanted a spy, but when Sir Eveningwood was less than accommodating, he had him killed.”

“Sir Eveningwood had no love of me. I had bested his brother in tournament five years in a row.”

“Ah, I see. James was counting on his grudge without realizing how deeply Sir Eveningwood’s loyalty ran to the crown.”

John closes his eyes. “He was a good man.”

“I said at the time that the killer had an accomplice,” Sherlock continues. “It was the kitchen maid. Unlike Sir Eveningwood, she had no love for the royal family – she had been spurned by someone at Court and so held a grudge against all of noble blood. She had a means of procuring a cleaning agent that would act as a poison, from her work in the kitchens. When Sir Eveningwood drank that pint the night of his death, she had already doctored it.”

It’s beautiful, listening to that mind work. It’s beautiful because Sherlock is putting together so many pieces, painting a portrait of all James had done. Now that he has the unknown puzzle piece in his hand, now that he has the unknown element, everything has fallen into place. “James killed her because she knew too much.”

“Or because she realized that once her part to play was over, he would kill her. What he wanted from her, we might never know. She left us bread crumbs, clues that would lead us to her killer.” 

“My father kept his mother as a whore, Sherlock – not for a few weeks or months but for _years_ ,” he suddenly says. He doesn’t know why he wants Sherlock to understand, only that John has always recognized wrongs for what they are, and James and his mother had been wronged so deeply, so terribly, that there was no restitution strong enough to heal those wounds. “She miscarried, over and over, and still he fucked her, filled her with children she could not carry. She wasn’t like my people, hearty and strong. Her mind was delicate, fragile, and with each child she lost, she also lost a piece of herself. When peace came and she was married to my uncle, she lost what hold she had on her mind,” John says softly, closing his eyes. “It is revenge, born of insanity. When his plan with the kitchen maid, whatever that it was, failed, James set his second one in motion. One of your people killed the Lord of the Wood, Sherlock, claiming to be your father’s hand. They are coming. They will kill you all, and James will have his revenge.”

Sherlock turns then, on his side, and John does too. They’re sharing a pillow, sharing _breath_ , the swell of their child between them. “My father and Mycroft are leaving at week’s end.”

“What are you talking about?”

“My father plans to head north, out of the Ten Realms, to request aid from the King of the North.”

No one in memory had ever left the Ten Realms to the north, for beyond the borders of Lord Memnoc’s kingdom lay the unknown, and creatures not entirely human. It was how magic came to be in the realms, why Sherlock and his family were mages – interbreeding thousands of years ago. “Does your father have no allies here?”

“None that could mobilize with the speed he needs, or who could withstand this cold. We have no choice.” Sherlock murmurs to him, his eyes dark. “James has disappeared. It is not impossible to traverse our lands, as the knights of your realm learned. He means to destroy you, destroy us. His plans are in motion, while we still flounder. There is no other recourse, John. My father and my brother will go north in mere days, and you and I will be left to guard the citadel until their return.”

It seems so ridiculous, so absolutely impossible. “How?”

“We will find a way,” Sherlock says, and takes John’s hand in his. “I’m going to announce the baby before my father leaves.”

John doesn’t have to ask why – he’s the reason Sherlock is staying, he’s the reason his mate isn’t joining his father on the trek north. “I think it is the best thing to do.”

“Your pregnancy is obvious, John. To keep the kingdom without news, especially now, would invite dissent in Court. It is better that everyone know we have done our duty.” Sherlock forces him to look up into his eyes. “Soon, with the spring thaw, you will give birth to my heir. She will be theirs in many ways, but she will be ours in the most important. They will not know how much we will love her, how much we will teach her. They will not know that the princess born of your body, our first-born child, will one day be queen to all she surveys, the most powerful woman in all the ten realms.”

It is said with the weight of a king behind it, and when John looks up, Sherlock’s eyes are glowing with the power of his birthright. Inside of John is the strange flutter he’s felt for weeks now, and he closes his own eyes tightly to what has just happened, the magic his mate has just cast. 

He takes Sherlock’s hand and settles it low, right beneath his belly button. A moment, then – “Oh,” Sherlock says, stunned, when their child kicks once, then again. The magic goes out of his face when he smiles, a tiny crook of his lips that is beautiful for its rarity. 

“Sherlock,” John says, and closes his eyes to his mate’s kiss. “What if someone tries to hurt her?”

“They wouldn’t dare,” Sherlock tells him, forehead to forehead and all John can see are those beautiful eyes, dark with a thousand promises. “I’ve gotten rather good at turning people into toads.”

John will never admit the sound that he makes is closer to a sob than a laugh. “Don’t be funny, you know you can’t do funny, you just look ridiculous.”

“I’m terribly funny, ask Mycroft,” Sherlock says imperiously, though his eyes are crinkled at the corners.


	11. Chapter 11

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Lord Memnoc and Mycroft leave at the darkest hour of the darkest night, under the cloak of a crescent moon and a thousand scattered stars.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm going to be posting the end of this story in the next few chapters, but I wanted to thank everyone who has stuck with it all these months -- your encouraging emails and messages helped inspire me to finish this. Thank you all, and I hope that you enjoy!!

Lord Memnoc and Mycroft leave at the darkest hour of the darkest night, under the cloak of a crescent moon and a thousand scattered stars.

Lestrade takes Sherlock and John down a hidden staircase to a small room, an enclave really, that leads directly out to the stables. The trusted servants that have been asked to accompany their lord rush to ready the horses. The rough stone floor is covered in hay and dirt.

Mycroft’s very bearing is every inch the nobleman, even in his rough trousers, his thick cloak. His long hair is tied at the nape of his neck, and John is stunned by how hard it makes him look, as if he had brushed aside all of his courtly duties and exposed the surface of the real man. He looks like what he is, what John has known all along – someone dangerous, and not to be underestimated.

When he turns to them, though, the hardness of his face softens into something warm as it so often does when he looks on John these days. “I didn’t know if the stairs would be too much for you,” he says, and once, not so long ago, John’s pride would snap back with dog’s teeth, rabid and uncontrolled. He isn’t that person, not anymore. He says nothing, and Mycroft allows it.

Beside them Lestrade has gone to one knee, uncharacteristically formal. Mycroft looks down at him, and though his expression hasn’t changed, John can see the humor, bright in his eyes. “You’re angry with me." 

Lestrade goes stone-still, head bowed. “My lord.”

“You have no reason to be, Gregory. My father and I will be fine. You’re needed here. Your place is at my brother’s side.”

Lestrade vibrates with anger, but it’s Sherlock who snaps, “Don’t I get a say?”

“Brother mine, it’s impossible for you not to have a say in any situation,” Mycroft says, and smirks at Sherlock’s dark glower.

Whatever Sherlock might have said is interrupted by Lord Memnoc’s arrival. Like his son he too is dressed in rough-hewn clothes, sturdy for this weather, with heavy leather boots and a cloak edged with the fur of a bear. He looks mountainous, as if the very world itself should shudder at his feet.

He spares no time for talk. He touches his thumb to Sherlock’s forehead and a rune glows bright, expands into a circlet around Sherlock’s head before fading. A transfer of power, ancient and as old as time itself. Sherlock shudders under it, skin white as new-fallen snow.

“They’re coming,” Lord Memnoc tells him. “You are alpha, my son, and brilliant beyond even your own comprehension. Protect our home, but before all else protect your mate and child. Citadels can be rebuilt.”

“Father, I—”

When he pulls Sherlock in against him, tightly, John doesn’t know who is more surprised, Sherlock or his father. It doesn’t stop Sherlock’s fingers from knotting in his father’s cloak, his face pressed there in a moment of weakness so unlike him that heat wells up in John’s eyes.

Mycroft pulls John close, too, unexpected and silent, as does Lord Memnoc, one big hand cradling the back of John’s head as if he were precious. As if this, all of this, isn’t his fault.

The guilt is a physical thing, gripping with steely fingers around John’s heart. The heat spills over John’s cheeks but Lord Memnoc merely smiles at him, and gently, gently touches the heavy swell of John’s middle. “All will be well, little one,” he says, and John doesn’t know who he’s talking to.

They leave, then, the two of them, without any more being said. Sherlock watches them from the door for a long time, until their horses are lost in the dark, until all John can hear is the stillness of the earth, blanketed in white, the crispness of new-fallen snow and the soft whinny of horses in their stable disturbed from their sleep.

He watches because there is a truth, unspoken between them, that it is very likely Lord Memnoc and his son will never return; that this will be the last memory Sherlock has of them, the darkness swallowing them until he stands alone.

 

.

Soon, Lord Memnoc has been gone for one week, and then two weeks, and then a month. The land is continuously covered in white, thick with ice, until it’s not, until the first warming of the earth comes to the Realm of the Seven Moons. John’s belly grows, and grows, and grows, and his body comes to ache with it, with his child, who enjoys a healthy exercise regimen of jumping on his bladder and kneeing him in the spleen.

Sherlock settles into kinghood with the air of a man who has no choice, but when he sits on his father’s throne it’s with an effortlessness that he’s been taught since infancy. He is strong, and so very smart, and plans for war firm in his belief of right and wrong. The knights take to him instantly, and the courtiers, whatever their reservations, follow him just as helplessly.

There is a quieting, between them; a quieting of tempers, and a quieting of pain. He and Sherlock are easy together as they have never been, not ever, not even when John was skinny and terrified and new, a virgin trembling between his mate’s legs. He doesn’t know why it’s so easy now, but he thinks it might be in part because his chest, swollen and tight for weeks, gets on with the business of feeding a baby. John knows what he smells like, though he goes to great lengths to hide it – like whelping, like _mate_ and _pupped_ and _full_. If anything, this new status makes his position that much stronger, and Sherlock looks to John for his opinion now more than ever, as if his thoughts matter. As if he matters, beyond this role asked of him.

Nearly six weeks, Lord Memnoc has been gone, and the lines in Sherlock’s face grow hard in a way that both suits his face and makes it terrible to behold. There is an anger, a rage there, held in check by the most tenuous of threads. John doesn’t know what’s going to happen when it snaps.

The baby is agitated and restless one afternoon, as if she’s terribly uncomfortable with the whole situation and wishes to share her unhappiness, and so John takes her to the throne room, to the windows overlooking the village. He can hear the men training from the window and battlements being prepared, and the people of the village scurrying now with purpose and badly concealed panic. He takes her there for the peace that comes with being close to his mate, and not because he can just hear Sherlock and his council arguing in the room behind the throne, where Lord Memnoc had threatened him once, in another lifetime.

It is there, at the window, that Sherlock finds him, crown at his brow and heavy cloak over his shoulder. He looks as if he’s spoiling for a fight, as if it’s only his iron-hard will that is keeping him from shouting himself hoarse. Or worse. “John.” He comes to rest at the windowsill beside him, fingertips steepled under his chin. “You should be resting.”

“How many weapons does the citadel have?”

There in his eyes is the look of a man preparing for the death of is people. John has seen it on and off for days now, no matter that his mate has been hiding it from him. He knows what Sherlock is planning. “A good many.”

“You’re a terribly old fashioned sort,” he says softly, and Sherlock’s gaze darts over to him. “I can help you prepare.”

“Lady Serra tells me you are well within the time that your labor could begin.”

“I doubt that this child is going to be meeting the world before she’s good and ready,” John says, touching a finger to the fine glass of the window. It’s warm under the steady sunlight, but it’s an enchanted warmth. His fingertip tingles from it. “I could be of use to you.”

Sherlock touches his thumb gently to John’s cheek and leans down to scent him, there behind his ear. “The army is crossing the Winter Valley, ten thousand strong,” he says quietly. He doesn’t sound like himself, the man who could articulate on two hundred types of tobacco ash, who could describe the root system of every plant in the kingdom. The weight of the crown has settled on him unevenly, too quick and without warning. “The people are counting on me, on my mind, on my _brilliance_ ,” he spits, with sudden fury, but his hand is soft, so soft on John’s face, when he tilts his chin up so their eyes will meet. “I won’t have you in danger, John. Don’t ask it of me.”

John’s heart aches. “It’s alright, Sherlock.”

“Nothing could be further from the truth,” Sherlock says fiercely. He paces back and forth in front of the window, in front of John. “We are unprotected. The magic bordering the palace has been made weak by the cold, no matter my efforts to keep it strong. The people are ill. If I ask them to come into the palace, influenza will spread like wildfire. If I let them stay in their houses, the magic guarding the village will inevitably fall back to guard the palace and the people will die from exposure to the cold. Our stores are low, and there aren’t enough men of age who can wield a sword.”

For the first time he realizes just how out of his depth Sherlock really is, how difficult this is for him, because for all of his mate’s brilliance he’s terrible about people. “You’re not listening to them, are you?”

“Who?”

“Your father’s council.”

Sherlock turns to stare at him. “I often pride myself on getting to the end of your thoughts before you do, but I must confess I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

He rolls his eyes. “Sherlock. You’re just echoing the words of the dusty old men in that dusty old council chamber.” He takes his mate’s hand, tugs him to the window. Far, far down below the people of the realm scurry to and fro. “Don’t you see? They aren’t dumb animals, to be herded – they’re your people. They bring value to you, to this place. Use them.”

“How?”

That he says it so helplessly, with so much fear held so perilously in check, hurts him to the quick. “The blacksmith and his apprentice are well-versed in their art.”

“The boy—”

“Will be fine,” John answers sharply. “He’s smarter than you think, and being omega makes him light on his feet, small enough to scurry where others can’t. The women who own the Warbeck Inn are the masterminds behind your realm’s beautiful firework displays. Five coin says they can fashion explosives for you.”

“Expl— _John_ ,” Sherlock says, but John rolls right over him. “Use them, Sherlock. The river runners can navigate your waters with the ease of experience. Arm them and you have a fleet capable of moving great distances in short time. The cartsmen know the lay of the village, and like the river runners they can get supplies and information to your men quickly.” He looks up at his mate, and wishes he could shake him. “Don’t you see? The key to your success is right here.”

Sherlock stares at him, white to the lips. “I won’t have you out in it.”

“I need help getting to my feet, so I really don’t think that’s going to be a problem. You need me here. I know the way the people of the south think, and how they strategize.” Sherlock’s expression shutters, and John catches his hand, kisses the backs of his fingers. “We’re stronger than the sum of our parts. I’ll keep her safe. I swear it to you.”

Sherlock tilts his chin up, gently, thumb at the edge of John’s jaw. “I am alpha. It would be a falsehood to say there isn’t a part of me that must protect you, when I know that there within you is our queen. And yet, this instinct does not – could never – supplant my great admiration of you.”

John turns his face away. “Sherlock.”

“You are heavy with the burden of what has been asked of you, quite literally, and that you still wish to help only proves my point.”

What could he ever say, how could he ever argue with Sherlock, when his mate is staring at him with that expression of his, as if John is a puzzle and Sherlock the puzzlemaker? As if he has slotted the last piece into place? “I don’t feel very strong.”

“Well, you’re trying to make a baby, I rather think that’s an exhausting business,” Sherlock replies, like the bastard he is. Still, it makes John laugh, and Sherlock presses a kiss there to his jaw, his neck, his shoulder, as John tangles his fingers in Sherlock’s hair.

 

.

That night, John is startled awake to the most peculiar sensation of the baby moving down low in his belly.

It’s so sudden that he doesn’t understand what’s happening, so caught up in the wisp of a dream – a formless terror of being chased and the baby and Sherlock – that it takes a moment for the feeling to register. There is a fierce pressure, bizarre and almost painful for its suddenness. It echoes across his belly, similar to the muscle spasms he’d been having for weeks, spasms he would never call contractions but which were, Serra said, his body practicing for the real thing.

She’d told him he would know when the baby was preparing to come, and he thinks perhaps this is the first sign. When he reaches down between his legs, however, his seam is as it has been these many months, healed and cool to the touch.

“John?”

He looks up. Sherlock is perched there at his laboratory counter at the end of John’s bed, a dozen books open in front of him, their pages fluttering with agitation. “Are you alright?”

“Fine,” John says, and clears his throat. The pressure fades but the baby’s presence has never been more apparent. He sits up, after some careful maneuvering, and realizes how much easier it is to breathe. Serra had told him this would happen too, and his heart kicks up a sharp beat beneath his ribs.

His first instinct is to keep this from Sherlock, especially now with war waiting at their doorstep. John knows that the instinct is from the before time, when he was young and naïve and so dreadfully stupid, when he was raised to be in control, to be alpha.

He isn’t an alpha. He’s omega, round and full and about to give birth to his mate’s heir, a royal lineage unbroken for a millennia. He isn’t an alpha. He had tried to make the choices of one and now people would die, sacrificed to his vanity.

He isn’t an alpha. He no longer has the right to keep the secrets of one.

“The baby moved,” he says. “That’s what startled me.”

“Mmm,” Sherlock says, distracted again by something he’s looking at through the magnified circle of magic hovering over one of the books. He has a peculiar look on his face. John would even call it mad. “Has she been kicking again?”

“No. Well, yes, but that’s not what I mean.” It takes some work but finally he’s on his feet, blanket around his shoulders. Walking, too, is newly uncomfortable. His back hurts down at the base of his spine, and there is a new heaviness in the bowl of his hips, and the seam _aches_ from within. After a few steps the pressure lessens, but never has his swell been so obvious, round and full and _low_.

Sherlock is staring at him, and John tries on a smile. He thinks perhaps it fails halfway. “The baby moved,” he says again.

Sherlock supports him at the small of his back as he approaches, pulls him gently close to his side. His hand looks so large there on John’s belly, dark against the white of John’s night shirt.

Sherlock gets that proud alpha look of his, and this is the Sherlock John knows, the one who doesn’t realize how ridiculous he is – not the man marred by the lines in his face, exhaustion weighing heavily under his eyes. “Well,” he says hoarsely, and clears his throat. “Well.”

“Yes.” He leans heavily on Sherlock, allowing his mate to take some of the weight. Sherlock folds their fingers together and brings them to his mouth.

He could delude himself before; he had his short-sword, his knife, his fists. Now it’s taking all of his concentration to stay on his feet, and that’s with Sherlock’s help. He’s weak with this baby in him, ready to be born. He could no more fight off a flea, let alone an oncoming horde.

He rests his temple against Sherlock’s. There are maps all over the work table, with tiny markers on them. When John touches one, his finger goes right through it, the illusion flickering as if in agitation before righting itself. Sherlock does nothing but stroke his cheek with his thumb.

He’s so terribly, terribly sad, because Lord Memnoc and Mycroft never came back, and left Sherlock alone; because they are unprepared; because an army ten thousand strong is less than a fortnight away and when they arrived they would slaughter everyone in their path. They would kill Sherlock and John and their baby, in retribution for the murder of their king.

Perhaps then, James’ blood lust would be sated. Somehow, he doesn’t think so.

“I’m sorry,” he whispers. “Sherlock, I’m so sorry.”

“Don’t be stupid. You have nothing to be sorry for. You are _mine_ ,” and that he says it with such conviction only makes John’s eyes burn all the worse. He ducks his head down until John has to meet his gaze. “You are mine, as is this child, these people, this kingdom. Do you trust me?”

“You know I do.”

“Then trust that our situation is no longer quite so dire.”

He says it with that mad gleam in his eyes, the same look John had seen before he went tearing off through the village after the boatman, when he’d taken John to his tower for the first time. It’s the sort of look that makes John’s heart kick up in his chest, excited despite himself in the face of the unquestionably grand adventure Sherlock is cooking up. “You have a plan.”

“Of course I have a plan,” Sherlock says, with such satisfaction that John wants to smack it right off his face. “Thanks, in part, to you.”

“Me? What did I do?”

“You guided me to see. You are, after all, my beacon in the dark.”

He brushes his thumbs over John’s face, and John huffs, rubs his cheek dry with the edge of his night shirt. “Don’t say those things, people are going to accuse you of being a romantic.”

“We can’t have that,” Sherlock says, climbing to his feet. He holds John steady, careful now as if John is made of spun glass. “I don’t know if I’ve told you this, but you have never been more beautiful than you are now.”

John lets Sherlock lead him back to the bed, because he knows what Sherlock is trying to do, and plays along for both their sakes. “Don’t you start with that, Sherlock.”

“Simply stating the facts,” Sherlock says, smug with his own accomplishment in getting John into this state. John can’t hold it against him too much, but still, it’s undignified.

John tells him so, at great length, as Sherlock helps him back to the bed, and shucks his boots, and climbs in behind him. He’s still telling him off when Sherlock pulls the blankets up over them, and settles himself in against John’s back like he belongs there, like he’s carved a little niche for himself and he’s perfectly content snuffling at the back of John’s neck until the end of time.

 

.

“It’s madness,” Lestrade says, strained, in that way he gets where he’s moments away from violence and it’s only the stronghold he has on his own temper that’s keeping him from bashing Sherlock about the brain. “I always follow where you lead me, Sherlock, but this is the most ridiculous, mad scheme you’ve ever come up with, in a long history of ridiculous, mad schemes.”

John has a moment of unquestioning brotherhood with Myron and Bohin, because the two of them had often said the same thing about his mad schemes. Sherlock beams and he does look like the madman Lestrade is accusing him of being, smiling like an idiot even as he paces, tapping his chin with his steepled fingers. “It’s brilliant. I’m brilliant.”

“It’s mad!”

“You’ve said that already, people are going to think that’s the only word you know,” says Sherlock on a giddy laugh. He sounds unhinged. “It will work.”

“It won’t work,” Lestrade barks, pacing and tugging at his hair. “And you, you’re encouraging him!”

“Of course I am,” John says peacefully. He’s on the sofa because it hurts to stand for too long – the muscle spasms across his belly have grown more painful since the morning, but he finds that if he rubs where they’re worst the pain eases. “You and Sherlock have been planning with the council for six weeks, and none of the campaigns they’ve put forth have any hope of minimizing bloodshed.”

“But they are plans,” Lestrade snaps, and points a finger at him. “This is madness.”

“No,” Sherlock says, “it’s simple. Absurdly simple, in fact.”

Lestrade looks between the two of them, before groaning and slapping a hand to his face. “There’s no way I can dissuade you?”

“No,” Sherlock says again, pleased, and seats himself beside John, which earns him a glare for the jostling, just when the discomfort had eased.

Lestrade sinks down onto the chair across from them. “They’re less than a week away.”

“We estimate ten thousand?”

“From Sir Riverson’s report, ten thousand,” Lestrade agrees, pinching at the bridge of his nose.

Sherlock leaps back to his feet, all nervous energy. The crown is beautiful for all that it’s magic, seen only in direct light and shimmering at his brow. He begins to pace, back and forth. “Less than that now. In this cold, they have undoubtedly been reduced in number due to disease. My father’s magic keeper is even now looking into the books – he’s been around since the dawn of creation, he’s certain that the spell used in the second century is still in the library. If not, I’ll have to come up with my own – which will take longer and be far more difficult, but I’m brilliant so I’m not altogether worried about it.”

“Extending the wards outwards to a radius of a hundred miles will ensure that the soldiers will have no idea what’s happening until they’re all close to the castle,” John says simply. “How long can you hold that, Sherlock?”

“Long enough,” his mate says with a wave of the hand. “Don’t you see, Uncle? We use the magic of the realm against them. A day is all we need, to reduce the army from ten thousand to a few hundred, if that – those men who have visited our realm previously.”

“You’re talking about penning ten thousand desperate and terrified men with magic, magic that’s going to make them sick to the point of death,” Lestrade says, scraping his hands through his hair in a move so familiar John knows where Sherlock got it from. “Desperate men are dangerous men, willing to do anything to save themselves.”

“I know.”

“Do you? Do you really? Because their terror is going to bring out the worst in them,” Lestrade snaps. “They’re coming for revenge, Sherlock, and you’re planning a slow death for them.”

“That’s what’s bothering you.” Sherlock stops his pacing to stare at his uncle. “You find my solution distasteful.”

“It isn’t right,” Lestrade says. “It isn’t an honorable death. You should give them a chance to fight.”

“You’re an amazing knight,” John says, and they both look at him. “A gentleman of worth, and that you are my family is a great pride. Sherlock, I agree with your uncle – it isn’t right. But I agree with you as well, that this is the way we can protect as many of our people as possible.”

He stands, painfully, and not without his mate’s help, and moves slowly to Sherlock’s table, where the maps are spread out. “My people are ruthless. You both know this. But my father, my uncle’s people, they aren’t without compassion. If we can speak to them, if we can explain, we can stop this before it becomes war.” He looks up at the two of them. “My father doesn’t want to hurt you, or me. For all that he’s done, for all the bad decisions he’s made, he’s still my father. This plan is ridiculous, totally unorthodox, but it will incapacitate without killing, until a truce can be made. Paired with what your people are going to do, it will work. But this hinges on you, Sherlock. Don’t tell me you can hold the wards to that strength for that long.”

Sherlock glares at him. “I can.”

“You’re lying,” John says simply. “What was it you told me? A day before the fevers begin? You would need to extend the wards out at least fifteen kilometers in every direction, so that by the time they arrived, they would already be well into the sickness.”

Lestrade throws his hands up, muttering under his breath, and begins pacing, his heavy boots loud on John’s floor. “This is ludicrous. I can’t believe we’re even talking about this.”

“I can do it,” Sherlock says again, haughty with disdain like he does when he’s lying through his teeth.

“It would kill you,” John snaps, “and I’m not raising Aloise on my own, so figure out a solution.”

Both men stop, and John gets the peculiar sensation that the world has swayed itself to a halt. Lestrade stares at him as if he’s seen a ghost. “What? What did I say?”

“Who is Aloise, John?”

John blinks, because he didn’t-- “Oh. That’s her, isn’t it? Our baby, she’s Aloise.”

“I’m going to sit,” Lestrade mumbles, and does so, hard, as if his knees won’t hold him, as if he would have collapsed to the floor otherwise. He hangs his head down between his knees and John realizes he’s done something terrible, he must have, because Sherlock is completely white, so white that the freckles John can usually only see in bright daylight stand out in stark relief.

John makes a hurt noise, he can’t help it, only his mate brings John’s fingers to his lips, kisses them with a gentleness so unlike him. “On our death, our magic does not simply cease to be. It is passed on to all the members of a person’s family, and it carries with it a piece of that person’s being – their memories, their joys, their sorrows. It is how I know that in her last days my mother dreamed of a child, a beautiful girlchild with long dark hair and an upturned nose, who kept her company when the pain of her illness became too much to bear.”

John’s trembling, and he tries to pull away from his mate, from the intensity of his gaze, but Sherlock squeezes his hand, hard. “Her name was the last thing my mother said, John.”

“No,” John says, and tugs again, even as Sherlock pulls him in, pulls them close. He fists his fingers into Sherlock’s cloak, and buries his face there. There is nothing he can say, can possibly say, to ease his mate’s pain. “I’m rubbish at this magic business, you must agree.”

Sherlock sighs, shaky and quick as if it’s been punched out of him. “John.”

John curls up onto his toes to kiss him. He can’t help himself, not even when Lestrade clears his throat, loudly, behind them.


	12. Chapter 12

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three hundred knights. His people. John’s people are coming to kill them.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Please note the updated tags. This chapter includes graphic childbirth (of which I cannot emphasize enough), betrayal (though not on Sherlock or John's part), and violence. Lots and lots of violence, including descriptions of battle and killing. If ANY of those things are a trigger for you, please skip ahead to the epilogue.

He dreams.

Catacombs, lit with fire. The cold stone is familiar, as familiar to him as breathing, and the magic within it sings under his fingers. He follows it down a worn path, smooth stone under his bare feet. The baby in his belly is moving, as if she can sense it, the joy of so much power that tastes like home on his tongue. 

There is a lake. It appears before him as if it had always been, the surface unbroken and still, the waters dark and deep. He can see his reflection in it. His eyes glow, soft and white as if he, too, is magic.

There is a noise behind him, far behind him in the catacombs -- an animal’s roar, and John knows it is James.

No choice. He steps out onto the water’s surface, and it holds him as he knew it would. He doesn’t know how to swim. Each step will be his last. The baby will die, and so will he.

He turns, and James watches him from the water’s edge. He’s a night creature, a wolf, feral and insane and knowing. He wants John. He wants this baby. His fangs drip with blood.

The water opens beneath his feet, and he sinks down through it.

He’s being hunted. The wind roars through the trees, and the boughs shake with such force that the very earth is trembling. Just beyond the leaves is the full harvest moon, echoed seven times like a dance of light across John’s eyes.

He’s running, and it’s agony, and he doesn’t know why until he looks down, until he sees what’s in his arms. The baby. Aloise is here. He can’t see her face, only downy black hair and pale, pale skin, tiny and crying with a new voice.

He’s running, and it hurts so much because he’s torn between his legs, a terrible pain that’s somehow familiar and totally new. It hurts deep down in his belly, like the knife he took at Maiwand, that went deep and broke at the hilt and nearly killed him, only somehow worse because he knows he can’t stop running. He can’t stop running because the creature at his back wants her.

He hears it howl and the leaves tear at his clothes, his cloak tangled in the brambles like small grasping fingers. It’s chasing him. It’s chasing him, he can hear it crashing through the brush, because it wants her, wants to eat her whole. Just ahead is a clearing, but he can’t run fast enough, his legs won’t carry him another step. The baby screams from the cocoon of his arms, and the creature’s roar of satisfaction echoes through the trees. He hears himself make a sound he never thought he would utter, the wild, terrible cry he remembers from war – it’s the sound of an omega screaming for its mate, the wail of a creature about to be torn apart.

Sherlock is here.

He’s floating above the ground, beautiful and fey, magic swirling all around him, lighting up his eyes until they glow, unearthly and gray before deepening into the furious, deep black John has only seen once before. He tames the very trees with a look, the trembling ground, for he is the lord of all magic, and the world is his to command.

The fabric of reality heaves once, and Sherlock’s eyes are unearthly, demonic. His skin ripples and he grows, and grows, and grows, until he has become a creature out of nightmare, covered in scales, with slitted yellow eyes and a long, curling tail.

John’s scream is lost under the dragon’s fire.

“John!”

He comes awake and hears himself, feels the scream burning in his throat. He tastes iron, but Sherlock is here, his mate is here, sitting beside him in their bed, his cloak cold and dusted with snow. Behind them the light streams in through the open door, and voices cry out, but it’s only Sherlock holding him, cold winter at the windows and the bed warm with sleep.

He grinds down on the noise, though it is instinct, a reflex he can barely control. Sherlock looks wild, terrified, and his hands are covered in blood, and John doesn’t understand what’s happened until Serra lifts the blankets down between his legs.

“Sherlock, please,” he gasps, but Sherlock’s eyes are blown wide open with panic – he isn’t listening to a word John is saying. Serra touches him in a place that hurts, badly, and the feeling is not unlike the moment months ago, running after Sherlock full-tilt through the village. The sensitive, healed seam doesn’t feel so healed now, and he shudders, turning his face into Sherlock’s shoulder. “No. No, please.”

“Shhh,” Serra murmurs, and touches him again, in a lower, deeper place, and it hurts, but Serra says, “Yes.” Her eyes are shining when she looks up, with joy and pride and so many other things John recognizes as love. “The seam has opened,” she whispers, and grips his other hand, and John realizes she’s crying. “My lord, it’s absolutely perfect.”

Terror rises up like a wall and renders him mute. He goes cold, then hot, then cold again, a rush of goosebumps down his spine and up prickling across his scalp. “What—” He stops. Clears his throat. Sherlock is so still beside him John doesn’t think he’s even breathing. “What happens now?”

“How long have you been having contractions, John?”

He rubs his mouth with numb fingers. “They weren’t contractions.”

“A day?”

There’s a strange buzzing in his ears, and Michael murmurs, “Enough.”

Slowly, he shows Sherlock how to raise John up to sitting, which is a whole degree of discomfort he wishes he hadn’t just experienced. Sherlock is white as snow, but he rubs John’s back soothingly, right where it hurts the most, and his belly, where it feels so tight. “John,” he says, voice like gravel under horse hooves. “John.”

Serra pulls a blanket over his shoulders and John shudders, leaning into Sherlock’s warmth and closing his eyes. “I…I’m getting blood on the bed,” John says, and the buzzing is all the worse. “I don’t think I can – Sherlock.”

“You have no choice,” his mate tells him softly, and he realizes he’s clutching Sherlock’s hand just as hard as he’s clutching John’s. “You won’t be alone. Do you understand?”

He stares at Sherlock, and now, now, the tears come. “Sherlock. Please, I don’t – I can’t do this, I can’t – he’s coming. He’s coming.”

“John,” Sherlock whispers, broken and so beautiful and with John’s fate written there in his eyes.

Without even a by-your-leave Sherlock gathers him up, lifting him like a wilting maiden. It’s so sudden that it’s all John can do to cling to Sherlock’s shoulders and neck, his center of balance already so terrible that this feels as if he’s been turned on his head. It hurts, too, and Serra is right beside him, and Michael, and John doesn’t look down, he doesn’t look down except he does, and the bed is covered in his blood. He feels raw between his legs, exposed, but Serra is tucking a blanket around him, and Michael is gathering John’s things, and he doesn’t know what’s happening, he doesn’t – “Sherlock, please.”

John thinks maybe Michael is more than a servant, because he recognizes his expression, has seen it on the battlefield many times. Sherlock’s grip never falters, and he turns and speaks in a tongue John’s never heard from him before, but which Michael responds with in kind.

There are people in the hall, servants and courtiers and soldiers who had come running at John’s cry, and who bow when John appears before them. Whatever false bravado John had been gathering falls to dust at his. He grinds his teeth on his pleas and presses his face there into Sherlock’s neck.

He takes John up the familiar staircase, with the view for as far as the eye could see, to his laboratory. The magic sings over his skin when they pass through the door.

Sherlock sets him on a chair under the window, and it hurts, it hurts terribly. He crouches down to cup John’s face. “Trust me, as you always have,” he says, and in his voice is pride and fear and regret, and all the thousand things he could never say.

“What are you doing?” John hears himself ask, as if from far away.

“What I should have done weeks ago,” Sherlock says softly, fingers in John’s hair.

John doesn’t understand, he doesn’t understand, except the servants are bringing in John’s things, his favorite jumper and the bed covers and his books, and John is trembling so much that he can barely keep his seat. His fear catches him unaware, shudders through his body. The ground on which he stands is crumbling around him. It is only Sherlock keeping him tethered, even as Sherlock chips away at the stone at his feet. “I can help you. Sherlock, please. Please.”

“Our plan isn’t going to work,” Sherlock says, tired and drawn and old, and for the first time John wonders at it, at his mate, if he really is as young as John himself. “Your father sent four regiments on horseback, ahead of your uncle’s army. They’re here. They’ll be in the citadel in the next hour.”

Three hundred knights. His people. John’s people are coming to kill them.

Sherlock eyes go gray and bright and alien, and when he stands and begins his spell casting, John nearly claps his hands over his ears. The small cot where John had lazed so many months ago, innocent yet from the knowledge of the growing life inside of him, expands and grows into a large bed, enough for John to sleep comfortably. For John to give birth. The clutter of Sherlock’s things disappear as if they were never there, a trick of light superimposed on the eye and fading into nothing just as suddenly.

They’re coming. They’re coming to kill them.

He can hear himself talking, babbling, pleading, but Sherlock merely gathers him up again, even when John struggles, fighting against a fate he cannot alter. He should have never tried. When Sherlock sets him on the bed John screams, the panic under his ribs given life, but Sherlock doesn’t listen. He’s talking but John is struggling, so much and with such force that Michael and Serra come to him, hold him down. She’s shouting, her voice lost under the sound of John’s terror, and Sherlock’s face is cold and hard but for his eyes, terrible, terrible and lit with so much regret.

The door closes behind him with a final sound, and the near imperceptible hum of magic.

 

.

He’s in labor.

He begs Serra to listen, please just listen, but the muscle spasms – the _contractions_ – are such that it becomes increasingly difficult to focus on anything but the pain.

It hurts, worse because though he is split open, the seam is still so sensitive. He is dilating, Michael tells him gently. Serra makes him get up and walk and the pain is terrible. It’s going to be quick, she says. He’s been in labor for a day now, even if he didn’t know it. This part, the active labor, is always fast, especially for omegas. His body knows what to do.

John says, “Please, get Sherlock, I have to tell him, please,” and Serra is crying but she doesn’t understand, she can’t understand what’s happening.

“I need him,” John sobs, because his people are going to kill his mate. If he’s here, he’ll be safe. “I need to tell him. This isn’t right. We’ve been tricked, we’ve all been tricked.”

“Shhh,” Michael says, and holds his hand when another contraction hits.

He makes noises he never thought he could make. His belly is rock hard.

He can hear the sound of battle from the window.

 

.

The baby won’t come. Hours, and hours, and hours, and John tries to be quiet, he tries so hard, but it hurts so very much.

He wants to hate himself, what he is, but he can’t. He can’t. His baby is going to be born, and already he loves her with a ferocity he can’t describe. He’s so proud because he made her, and now she’s going to come into the world and be a part of it, because of him, because of what he is.

He would die for her.

He still might.

 

. 

Something is wrong. He knows it, can feel it.

It feels like heat, but so much worse. In heat he wanted _alpha_ ; he wanted the touch and scent and come of his mate, to soothe the worst of his pain. There is no relief here. There is only the sweat burning in his eyes, and his belly cramping past what he can endure without sobbing like a child, and the scent of his own blood filling his nose. 

Serra wipes his brow and tells him he's doing well, but she's lying. It's taking too long. He's done himself too much damage. The baby should be here already. 

 

.

Michael has a sword in his hand.

John hears voices, shouts, but the contractions are coming so fast now. He can’t move.

Serra is hysterical beside him, but John is so weak he can barely follow what she’s saying. Michael is shouting, and a sword is singing, and Serra screams. There are knights, the knights John trained and lived with and laughed with. They’ve come. They’re here to kill them.

John can’t move. He can’t sit up, he can’t even untangle his fingers from the sheets underneath him, as his body tries to turn itself inside out.

They have Serra – Merek and Peter, they have her – and Dain is behind them, splattered with the blood of John’s people, these strange people he has come to love so much. Michael is on his knees, a sword at his neck.

They can see him between his legs, where his knees are bent, his feet flat on the bed. They can see where he’s open and bleeding, where he’s trying to give birth to his child.

There is a man’s face above his, a face he recognizes, only it can’t be. It can’t be.

“Fucking hell, you’re having a baby,” Bohin says, and Myron pops up from his other side, his face blank with horror.

He doesn’t understand. He doesn’t understand, and all he can think about are the stories he’d heard so long ago, stories of a place after death. His friends have come for him, to lead him to the other side. “Please. Not yet. Let me have her first.”

“I’m not going to kill you,” Bohin snarls, the full force of alpha behind his words, and John’s body reacts to it, his belly seizing hard in another contraction. It’s agony, and he knows he can’t do this for much longer. He grips John’s hand in both of his as John’s body tries to turn itself inside out, as the pain crests and overflows.

Serra is there between John’s legs, and he’s certain he should be mortified but the pain is so terrible that he can’t think beyond it. It’s coming quickly, now, like waves crashing on the shore, and already he can feel the next one building, already his body is preparing itself.

“Your people killed our uncle,” Bohin tells him, and Myron’s fingers drive gently through John’s hair, wiping the sweat from his eyes. 

It is as it should have always been, his friends here beside him, helping him. But they died, he knows they did, and he doesn’t know what’s real. He doesn’t know, but he wants their forgiveness anyway. “Please. It was James, it was a lie – Lord Memnoc had no quarrel with him. It was a lie, Bohin.”

“Was it?” Bohin asks tightly. “Was it really? Because word has reached us of Lord Memnoc amassing an army from the north.”

“Magic is afoot,” Michael says, just as tightly, kneeling there on the ground. It makes him look dangerous, someone not to be crossed. “My lords, the prince speaks truth. You both were here, you both died at the temple, to bring m’lord the news of your uncle’s murder. Please understand, the Hand of the Seven Moons was not deployed, for he is before you. I was tasked with protecting the prince until the birth of his child, and I have not left his side.”

Bohin's eyes narrow. "You swear this is truth, on your life?" 

Michael lifts his chin, even when Dane's sword digs in closer. "My lord, I swear this truth not only on my life, but the life of the child your prince yet carries, the child ready to be born."

Bohin turns to speak to Myron, and whatever he says is immediately obeyed – the knights all suddenly leave, the roar of their armor so loud in John’s small room. John can hear it as they crash down the long steps, and Bohin’s face fills John’s entire world. “I have to find the king. Do you understand? I’m going to stop this. Where is your mate?”

“I don’t know,” John says, twisting fretfully. The pain is hovering, ready to come pull him in again. “I don’t know. The wards. The wards of this place, they’ll kill you.”

“They’re gone. The magic protecting the citadel has been destroyed,” Myron tells him, and John moans, head falling back. “Your father is here, he’s going to kill your mate if I don’t get there in time, so _concentrate_.”

He does. He tries, so hard, but his fingers slip on the thread connecting him to Sherlock. He can’t focus on anything but the agony twisting his body into knots. “I can’t, I can’t. It was James. James, he—”

“Got that,” Bohin grits through clenched teeth, as John seizes up into another contraction. He bites down on the cry, arching back until it relents. “Myron and I are going to find your mate before your father kills him. Reach within. You can sense him. Where is the prince? Where is Sherlock?”

He feels totally out of control, as if he’s coming apart at the seams and flying away in the wind.  
There is only pain, so much of it with such force that—

He can see, as if he were in Sherlock’s head, as if he were seeing from his eyes. He can feel Sherlock’s heart, just off from John’s own. He’s running. The village is on fire, but the people are fighting; John can see it, can hear it. The river runners are lobbing explosives from their boats, and the air smells of gun powder and fresh water and blood. Lestrade is bellowing out orders, face streaked with dirt and sweat, and he turns and says something but John can’t hear it because Sherlock’s ears are ringing from the explosions. There’s magic crackling in his fingertips that originates from a well of it deep within, as if Sherlock’s body were home to the almighty force of the sun. He’s powerful, more powerful than John could have ever imagined, and what’s more he senses John’s presence, John can feel it.

Gently, so gently, as if by a light wind, John is pressed back into the torture of his own body, to the tearing agony of it trying to birth this child.

He screams, and there’s chaos all around him, and Serra is squeezing his hand tightly and Bohin is shouting and Michael is there, he’s right there filling John’s entire world, and he sees how hard his eyes are because he knows, he knows. “Where is he?”

“The village. He’s in the village, near the river,” John gasps, twisting and pushing against their hold. “I need to get up, I need to kneel. Please help me.”

They do, immediately, and the change is agonizing. He leans against the wooden monstrosity of the footboard, holds to it tightly. Gravity works in his favor and he can feel the baby move, he can tell she’s lower, and that’s good, that’s so good because he thinks maybe he isn’t going to make it through this, that the damage he’d done to himself is going to kill them both. Bohin grips his hand tightly as John is drawn into another contraction. He says, “I’ll find him,” but John can’t answer, he can’t even speak.

He hears Bohin and Myron leave, their armor so loud, and John wants to go back, he wants to be with his mate, he wants his mate here. He can feel him, he can sense him, and never has being omega been such a torture, never has his nature hurt him as it’s hurting him now. He wants Sherlock with a need that is debilitating, that makes him hang his head down and cry like a child. His belly is hard, rippling, even with Serra there trying to soothe him, even with Michael at his side holding him so he won’t crumble.

“Shh, breathe through it,” Serra murmurs, rubbing his back gently. She reaches past him to the towels and blankets she had placed at his side, and later John thinks if perhaps he hadn’t been so overwhelmed with pain he might have understood what she was doing. Might have stopped her, before she drove John’s dagger to the hilt in Michael’s chest.

Michael’s mouth trembles open, and he stares down at the knife in him as if he cannot understand what has happened. John is blank with the horror of it.

“Serra ,” he says, chokes, and Serra turns her eyes to him, full of pity and sadness and remorse.

“Oh, John,” she whispers, and he knows, with a terrifying clarity, what she’s going to do. What she’s been planning to do since she came here to this place.

Michael crumbles, to the bed. All he can see are the man’s stunned eyes, his mouth trembling open as he tries to breathe through the knife in his chest. 

“You were the woman,” he says, pants, sweat in his eyes and tears on his cheeks. “The kitchen maid, she wasn’t – it wasn’t her at all. It was you. You were the one. You framed her, and you killed her.”

“She was useful,” Serra says softly, touching his cheek. “You have to understand, John. Your family, what your father did – it was beyond torture, beyond what anyone could endure. James is only taking back what is rightfully his. You understand that, don’t you?”

A contraction tears through him and he arches back, mute with pain and terror. He can hear her murmuring, “Breathe, breathe through it,” and he doesn’t know what to think, he doesn’t know why she’s still helping him, what—

She’s going to take her. She’s going to take the baby.

He feels like he must push, his body tells him to _push_ , but he can’t, he can’t because Serra is going to take her. “Please,” he sobs, reaching out to her even now. “Please, Serra, I need you, I need your help.”

Michael is alive yet, gasping, struggling at John’s side, until he is kicked off, away, like a dog might be kicked by its master. John watches him tumble to the ground through the haze of his own tears.

Serra kneels at Michael’s side, head cocked to the side like a bird and listening to the devils in her head. She twists the knife and Michael screams, arched back in agony. “There we are,” she murmurs, and blood bubbles up at Michael’s lips.

“What did he promise you, Serra?” John pants, clutching the bed frame weakly. He can smell his own blood, can feel it warm on his legs. The urge to push is unbearable.

Her gaze darts up to John, piercing and bright with her own conviction. “Your father is a terrible man.”

“He’s made mistakes, a fact which I know better than most.”

“Mistakes?” She rises to her feet, hair a cloud around her. He can see his death written there in her eyes. “Mistakes, John? You and your sister are the get of a whore, and that the woman you call mother raised you speaks more to her upbringing than any love of you.”

Horror prickles across his every nerve, down to the sweeping agony in his belly. “No. No.”

“Oh yes,” she spits. She takes him by the hair and pulls him from the bed, and for long, long moments John’s consciousness dims, as the pain becomes something he can’t withstand. He is on his knees like a dog. Like an omega bitch, shown his place.

He comes back to Serra snarling in his ear, her grip on John’s hair so tight he has to crane his neck back. She yanks and throws John onto his back, and John must scream, he’s certain he screams, but he can’t hear anything, feel anything, but the pain. She kneels before him, and though her mouth is moving her words are muffled, wordless with the blood roaring through John’s ears.

“The throne is no more your birthright than it is Heriathin's,” she snarls, her eyes lit with the bright certainty of her conviction. “James is _alpha_ , firstborn and destined to rule. The throne belongs to him.”

“What did he promise you?” John asks again. There are spots dancing in front of his eyes. He thinks perhaps he is dying. “Did he promise you a throne?”

“He promised me everything,” Serra says, face twisted with rage, and John knows that this, here, is where he’s going to die. She muscles his legs apart. “And I promised him everything in return – my loyalty, and this child.”

 _Push_ , says his body, his entire being. It seizes him up, the pain of it, of knowing there can be relief if he just does as his body asks. But he can’t. He can’t.

He gasps, “For what it’s worth, I’m sorry.”

“Are you?” Her gaze darts to him. “Are you really?”

“Yes,” John says, and Michael slits her throat from ear to ear.

Michael is dying as she falls, her face one of stunned disbelief. It’s as if she never thought it could happen to her, as if this wasn’t a part of her plan. When she falls to the ground her eyes remain open, fixed on some far away point. Michael is dying, but John turns away when he ends Serra's life, clenches his eyes shut as her body falls to the ground, her blond hair sheeted around her.

“My lord,” Michael mumbles. He collapses like his legs have been cut off at the knees, and slumps back against the wall. His eyes are going dim, and the dagger clatters to the floor. “John.”

“Michael,” he chokes out. He’s covered in blood. It is pooling beneath Serra's body, sliding across the floor. It is pouring down Michael’s chest like an open tap. “Please. Please stay with me.”

“You can do this.” He’s smiling. His teeth are painted red. “You can do this. You’re strong. You’re so strong.”

“You saved us. You saved her life,” John sobs, than arches back into another contraction. Michael is speaking but he can’t hear, or think, or see beyond the pain. When the need to push becomes unbearable he bears down, and the agony rears up and renders him mute.

When he comes back from it, Michael is dead, his eyes open and unseeing, and John is alone.

Terrible, terrible fear covers him like ice, drenches him in a cold sweat. He is alone, and he can’t move, not one more inch. He’s going to have her, lying on the ground like an animal, the body of the woman who had wrought this terror on them beside him, blood still warm on her face. He has no choice.

He stretches, enough that he can hook a few fingers along the edge of the duvet and pull it from the bed. He cries out when it pulls on his muscles, his belly, and he’s gasping even as he fumbles the blanket on the ground beneath him, where she’ll come. He breathes in once, twice, before forcing himself to touch between his legs, where it hurts so very much, and moans. The baby is almost here.

It’s pain he never thought existed, pulse after pulse, and his body seizes so he does as it asks of him and pushes. Again, seconds later, and again, and again, and his body is splitting open, turning itself inside out. He’s never felt such pain, never – he pushes and he’s screaming, he can hear himself screaming, but he can see her, she’s coming, and he bears down and suddenly she’s in his hands, her tiny head and arms and shoulders and face, his girlchild, his Aloise. He stares down at her, stunned, because there in his hands is a baby, and she just came from him. He doesn’t know what to do, so he holds her tight and pulls her from his body.

She’s wet, her skin red and wrinkled, and her tiny mouth works, and works, and he brushes his fingers there over her mouth to clear it, and her first cry is loud and healthy and beautiful.

He knows he is near to hysterical, he knows he is, but all he can see is his baby, all he can hear are her tiny sobs. They’re connected, he has no strength to cut the cord attaching them together, but it’s enough to bring her to him, on his chest where he can see her. He wipes her face with the edge of the blanket he’s covered her with, the same blanket he’d lazed on months and months ago that smelled so much like Sherlock. She’s the ugliest, most wrinkled little thing he’s ever seen, and he loves her with such fierceness he can barely stand it, can barely hold it all inside. He stares at her as she cries and cries with her, because she’s his, he just had her, she’s his baby and he loves her, he loves her so much.

A long time passes, he thinks. The sun passes its zenith and begins its descent down in the sky, and the sounds of battle outside have stopped. Eventually the baby whimpers in his arms, so he leads her to her first latch. She doesn’t know what to do, and neither does he, but after a bit of trial and error they get it sorted. The sensation is bizarre but somehow perfectly natural, and the pride he feels in feeding his child almost overwhelms him.

He can care for her. He is strong. He is omega.

He doesn’t know where he is, but it isn’t safe. He knows it isn’t, because there are dead bodies all around him. He thinks he should get up, but when he tries his entire body seizes.

Behind him the door slams open and John cowers down around his baby. He’s weak, he’s so terribly weak but he squirms back as much as he possibly can, to hide in the corner beside the bed. It doesn’t matter, not really, because the baby is crying, so he grabs for the dagger beside one of the dead people, and grips it with numb fingers.

He hears voices, achingly familiar, but he’s been tricked before. Myron, and Bohin, and he doesn’t know who it was they had funeral rights for, but he can’t think on that, not now, not when there are people, here.

Someone says, “Don’t scare him,” and then an alpha is there, staring at him from around the edge of the bed.

He hears an animal growl. The baby’s cries taper off into low, tiny whimpers and he holds her tightly to his chest. He is fierce and strong and omega. He’ll kill anyone who gets near. 

“John,” the alpha says softly, his eyes so familiar. John bares his teeth in a snarl.

“Alright. It’s alright. I won’t touch her, I promise,” he says, gently, and kneels down there in front of him, even though the floor is wet with blood. “You’re overwhelmed, it’s alright. My mother did the same thing, after she had my brother. She wouldn’t let anyone near for hours, not even my father.”

“My mate,” John snaps, because the alpha is close, he’s still too close and trying to get closer. He inches back, though it hurts so badly. “Where is my mate?”

“He’s coming. He’s on his way.”

“You killed him,” John snarls, and swipes out with the dagger. It pushes the alpha back. “You can’t have her. You can’t have her, you’ll have to kill me first.”

“John,” the alpha murmurs gently, so gently. “I haven’t killed your mate. You’re bleeding. Let me help you.”

There are others. They’ve come into his room, into his space, but with them is Sherlock.

Sherlock.

John wants him so much he can’t stand it – his warmth and his scent, to show him their baby. Not to touch, not yet, but so he can see, so he can know what John has done. But there have been so many tricks and lies, and he doesn’t know, he doesn’t – “Michael killed Serra. He killed her because she wanted my baby. She wanted Aloise, so he killed her.”

“I see that,” Sherlock says. He’s bleeding, there’s a gash across his eyebrow and up into his scalp that will scar. John makes a terrible noise at the sight of it, and Sherlock comes closer, kneels down close to John’s hidden spot. He looks first at the place between John’s legs, and the blanket, and finally to their baby, to where John is protecting her. His eyes are wet, and red. “John.”

“You should run. You need to – you should take her. The army is coming,” John says, though he can’t move, he can’t open his arms enough to let Sherlock take her. He thinks maybe he’d die, if Sherlock did.

“They aren’t. It’s over. Do you trust me, John?”

“Yes.”

His eyes flash, gray and beautiful, and Sherlock touches first John’s cheek, and then the baby’s.  
Tears track through the dirt on Sherlock’s face, and John doesn’t have to ask why, because there in his arms is a creature they’ve made, the two of them, together. He raises a trembling hand to Sherlock’s cheek and Sherlock nuzzles into it, kisses his palm, even as he takes the knife from him, sets it aside as if they no longer need it. “John. You’re bleeding. Let us care for you.”

He looks over Sherlock’s shoulder, terrified. They’re watching him. “No. They can’t have her.”

“No one is going to take her from you,” Sherlock murmurs. “I am your mate. You trust me. Remember?”

“Yes, but—”

“No one,” Sherlock tells him forcefully. “No one will take her from you.”

He searches Sherlock’s eyes, and sees nothing but conviction. Slowly, slowly, he nods.

Suddenly there are so many people there, and he cries out, but Sherlock shushes him gently so it’s alright. They’re lifting him to the bed, and the baby is crying and someone is between his legs doing something that hurts, an echo of pain, but Sherlock is there, touching their baby’s face, holding him so close.

“They were going to take Aloise,” he hears himself say. It’s dreadfully important that he tells them. “James and Serra. They wanted her. They were going to take her, Serra told me so.”

Bohin says, “Push, John, gently,” from down between his legs and John moans because it hurts, he doesn’t want it to hurt anymore. “Push,” he says again, so John does.

Mycroft is close by but it’s alright because his scent is comfort and familiarity. He means no harm to them, and he takes off his cloak to cover them both in warmth. John's father stands at his other side, holding his side awkwardly. John looks up at him, meets his eyes as he hasn’t done in nearly a year, since he came to his place.

His father is crying like a child.

John stares up at him and wonders at his own foolishness, for ever thinking that he was less. He’s just done something that would send most alpha’s running around in circles screaming.

He is powerful, and strong, and damn his father for ever making him think he was less, that only an alpha could ever deserve a throne.


	13. Epilogue

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “As you might imagine, we moved as quickly as the winter would allow,” Mycroft says, from his perch on the settee beside John’s bed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> And here is the end! Thank you to everyone who stuck with me, I hope you have enjoyed the story as much as I enjoyed writing it.

“As you might imagine, we moved as quickly as the winter would allow,” Mycroft says, from his perch on the settee beside John’s bed.

Aloise whimpers, the sound so little and quiet but John’s old hat at this, has had weeks to learn all the sounds his little girl made. He leads her to her latch, and she mouths at him before instinct leads her to suckle. The sensation is at it has been since the first time, strange and wonderful and perfect, because by feeding her he can care for her. That he should have help is merely a convenience. With this independence comes a fierce pride he can’t control, but which makes Sherlock smile every single time as if he knows exactly what John is thinking.

She’s small, his baby, with the same slight build as John’s people, while her coloring is Sherlock’s through and through. Her eyes are the fiercest and most incredible shade of blue John has ever seen, and when she blinks sleepily at him John can’t help the surge of love that aches from within.

It’s been weeks and the kingdom has only just begun to function once more. The people are shaken in everything but their faith in the king and his sons, and John is so grateful to it, that in all of this they have been left with a people who believed so deeply in them, who understood the love Lord Memnoc had of them.

Mycroft is shy about these moments, when John feeds the baby, and he stares up at the ceiling, cheeks gone a healthy shade of pink. Sherlock, in the midst of pacing, rolls his eyes as he passes. “When did you find out?”

“It took us mere weeks to meet with the guards who patrol the northern territories, where we were immediately taken into custody. Understandably they were alarmed by our presence, because they had heard word of the murder.”

“They didn’t want to be involved,” John says quietly.

“An understatement,” Mycroft replies, leaning back in the settee with legs crossed. “James went to the king of the north to beg his help, claiming that he had uncovered my father’s plot to murder the ten lords of the ten realms.”

“It was brilliant. We were playing checkers, and James was playing chess,” Sherlock says, tossing himself on the bed lengthwise, but in such a way that he barely disturbs Aloise. He touches one of her tiny socked feet with wonder, as he did all things when it came to their daughter. “His plan hinged on making us believe Bohin and Myron had come with a message."

“But how? How did he do it?”

“He came by the magic unnaturally – while he was a skilled spell-caster, he was nowhere near good enough to do this on his own. There were too many enchantments in play, too much magic being wielded. Not even Father would have been able to manage it. It was black magic, John.”

It’s as John had already known. “He was a prince of the blood in my uncle’s court. I imagine he had a tremendous amount of sway. How many people do you think were working with him?”

“A dozen. More.”

John looks down at his daughter’s perfect face. “He’s going to try again, isn’t he. He’s going to come after us.”

“He might try, but he won’t succeed,” Lord Memnoc says from the doorway.

He has always been a big man, but now the vitality of his health shines from his face. Being among his people once more had helped him recover swiftly from his time in the northern lord’s prison cell, though John thinks he won’t ever forget the way he’d looked when John had seen him once more, a shadow of himself. “May I enter?”

“Of course,” John says, and gives Sherlock a kick to get him to sit up, which he does, grumbling the entire way until he’s plastered to John’s other side. It’s useful, because now John has somewhere to support his elbow as he lifts the baby to his shoulder to burp her. “How is my father?”

Mycroft rises, and Lord Memnoc sits slowly, heavily, on the settee. “Resting comfortably,” he replies. “Your knights as well.”

“James will try again,” Sherlock says, and John turns to look at his mate, at this newfound darkness in Sherlock’s eyes. The experience of being king has aged him, made him more serious, more wary, though he does his best to hide it. “We must be prepared.”

“I have sent word of his treachery to those who would listen, and emissaries to those that wouldn’t. He has been declared an enemy of all the Ten Realms.”

Lord Memnoc doesn’t speak of the position it had put them in, in which a standing army was not only useful, but necessary. They could never find themselves unprotected again, not when it was obvious that with John’s marriage to Sherlock had come the politics and schemes of all the realms. The Realm of the Seven Moons was no longer alone, no longer protected by its own separation. It drives a point of pain through John’s heart to know he is the cause of it.

“My lord, I—”

Lord Memnoc lifts a hand. His eyes are hard, but in the way he looks at Sherlock, when he is exasperated by his son’s tendency towards the ridiculous. 

His child is but a handful, there on John’s shoulder. That she should be the answer to all of their fears doesn’t seem possible, and yet when Lord Memnoc takes her gently into his arms, holding her as if she’s spun from the most fragile glass, John cannot deny the future of their realm written out across the stars, anchored there in his child’s eyes.

Sherlock touches his thumb to John’s chin, and John smiles. “Well,” he says.

“Well,” Sherlock agrees, and kisses him gently.

The baby takes that moment to vomit spectacularly all over her grandfather. In the ensuing chaos Lord Memnoc lets out a loud, boisterous laugh, and Mycroft gags, and Sherlock shouts, “If you vomit on my child I will end your will to live,” even as he tries to pat his father down like burp cloths are somehow going to help the situation. 

John feels a swell of uncontrollable love for this little family of his, and gets up to help.

**Author's Note:**

> [Come visit me on Tumblr!](https://ladyflowdi.tumblr.com/)


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